Burridge Davenal Butler was an American agricultural publisher. He is noted for his service as a trustee of Blackburn College.
Background
Burridge Davenal Butler was born on February 5, 1868 in Louisville, Kentucky, the second of four surviving children and oldest son of Thomas Davenal Butler, a minister of the Christian (Disciples of Christ) Church, and Marie Burridge (Radcliffe) Butler. His mother had been born in New York state and reared in Ohio; his father, a native of Shrewsbury, England, had come to America in 1859.
In personality, Butler's parents were polar opposites, the father a brusque, temperamental, overbearing figure, the mother a quiet, gentle woman who wrote poetry. Butler's early childhood was insecure, with his father often away from home. Thereafter the family moved frequently to new pastorates: Detroit and Grand Rapids, Michigan; a small town in Ontario; Akron, Ohio; Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
Education
Butler's formal education was limited to grammar school.
Career
Leaving home after his mother's death in 1884, Burridge held a variety of jobs in Louisville and Cincinnati but was increasingly drawn toward journalism. He returned to Grand Rapids and became a reporter for the Morning Democrat in 1886.
He rose to the position of state editor when he resigned in 1894 to take an advertising position with a stove company in St. Louis. A year later he moved to Chicago and in 1896 joined the sales office of the Scripps-McRae League, a newspaper group being formed by Edward W. Scripps. Butler soon adopted the Scripps philosophy of editorial crusading for the common man, low subscription rates, and hard-boiled business management, a philosophy he was to apply throughout his career.
In 1899 Butler and two other Scripps employees left to build a newspaper chain of their own, Clover Leaf Newspapers. Butler became editor of their first paper, the Omaha Daily News, but returned to Chicago around the end of 1900 to help staff Clover Leaf's advertising office.
In 1903, for the partnership, he established the Minneapolis Daily News, becoming president and publisher. Clover Leaf enjoyed spectacular early growth, and by 1907 was publishing seven Midwestern dailies and two rural mail-order papers. Two years later, however, owing partly to conflict among the partners, Butler left the chain. In the settlement he acquired ownership of the semimonthly Prairie Farmer, an ailing farm paper located in Chicago, which had been purchased by Clover Leaf in 1908. He was to remain its publisher until his death.
Gregory set the editorial policies, but part of the paper's warmth and human interest reflected Butler's family feeling toward his readers. Of particular interest to Butler were the Prairie Farmer's campaigns against rural crime and deception, from chicken stealing to fraudulent mail-order and stock sales.
Over his four decades of ownership, circulation rose from about 50, 000 to more than 365, 000 in Illinois and neighboring states. Butler added a new dimension in 1928 when the Prairie Farmer purchased radio station WLS in Chicago.
Starting the broadcasting day at 5 A. M. for its early-rising audience, WLS offered news reports, women's features, and a folksy noontime show called "Dinnerbell, " which dealt with the joys and trials of individual listeners. The station's most successful program was the National Barn Dance, begun in 1924 and broadcast every Saturday night.
Combining country music, rural humor, and hymn singing, the show provided an early forum for entertainers like Gene Autry and Fibber McGee and Molly. The National Barn Dance played to live audiences at Chicago's Eighth Street Theatre and was seen by nearly two million people between 1932 and 1948.
After 1928 Butler, who suffered from arthritis, began to divide his time between Chicago and a home in Phoenix, Arizona.
Yet his human sympathy was reflected in his interest in aiding disadvantaged youth.
He died at the age of eighty in Phoenix of injuries sustained in a fall. His body was cremated and the ashes interred at the North Shore Garden of Memories, Chicago. Under the terms of his will, a large share of his $5 million estate went to youth-oriented charities in Illinois and Arizona.
Achievements
Burridge Butler was a trustee of Blackburn College, whose self-help program appealed to him; a member of the national council of the Boy Scouts of America (1925 - 1930); and a member of the national board of the Boys' Clubs of America (1920 - 1948). In his later years he acquired radio stations in Phoenix and Tucson and another agricultural journal, the Arizona Farmer.
He was religious but critical of organized religion.
Politics
He returned to Grand Rapids and became a reporter for the Morning Democrat in 1886.
Views
Burridge Butler insisted that both media operate as a team to serve farm families.
Membership
Burridge Butler was a member of the Boys' Clubs of America.
Personality
Widely recognized as an innovative journalist and a shrewd businessman, the tall, round-faced Butler was a personal enigma, alternately kind and bullying, generous and niggardly. Although displaying a fatherly regard for his staff as well as his readers, he was known on occasion to throw furniture about in a fit of temper.
Quotes from others about the person
Regarded by associates as a "born newspaperman, a tremendous worker and an intense partisan. "
Connections
Butler was married twice: on December 22, 1890, to Winifred L. Whitfield of Grand Rapids, and, after her death in 1904, to Ina Hamilton Busey of New York City on July 30, 1906. He had no children.
Father:
Thomas Davenal Butler
minister
Mother:
Marie Burridge (Radcliffe) Butler
1st wife:
Winifred L. Whitfield
2nd wife:
Hamilton Busey
colleague:
Clifford V. Gregory
Under Butler and Clifford V. Gregory, the young editor he hired in 1911, the Prairie Farmer gained a reputation as a crusading farm journal.
