After his father's death when White was fourteen, he and his mother moved back and forth from El Dorado to Emporia to Lawrence. Although he attended the College of Emporia (1884-1885 and 1886) and the University of Kansas (1886-1890), with intermittent jobs at newspapers in Emporia, El Dorado, and Lawrence, an aversion to math and the need to help support his mother kept him from graduating. In 1891, while working for the
El Dorado Republican, White wrote "The Regeneration of Colonel Hucks," a story about a Populist who returned to the Republican fold. The story caught the attention of several Republican editors and brought a job offer, which White accepted, with the
Kansas City Journal. In 1892 he joined the editorial staff of the
Kansas City Star , and soon after, he married Sallie Lindsay, who was to be not only his wife but also his business associate, adviser, and editorial assistant, helping him particularly with his fiction. They had two children, William Lindsay, later a syndicated columnist and author of note, and Mary.
In 1895 White bought the Emporia Gazette, an independent small-town newspaper. From his Emporia desk, White set about the business of making his "private sentiment public opinion" on subjects ranging from food to the national economy in a journalistic style that was terse, vivid, and direct.
This is a free page. This page contains 197 words. This
biography contains 2,226 words (approx. 7 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Biography with our William Allen White Access Pass.
