(Excerpt from Around the World In the years 1907-8 the wr...)
Excerpt from Around the World In the years 1907-8 the writer made a trip around the world. He wrote to newspapers some Sixty-seven letters in narration of what he saw. It has been suggested that these letters be republished in a book. This has been done in this volume. Its contents are the letters as they were written, with a few corrections and additions. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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Edwin was born on January 21, 1849 in Columbia, Missouri, United States. He was the son of James Leachman and Amelia (Hockaday) Stephens, where he lived and died. His grandfather, Elijah Stephens, a Kentucky farmer, settled in Boone County, Missouri, near Columbia, in 1819, and in 1843 Edwin's father, a dry-goods merchant, introduced a chainstore system in central Missouri, consisting of three cash mercantile establishments in as many county seats.
The boy entered the University of Missouri soon after Union soldiers broke barracks on the campus. Graduated at the age of eighteen, he went to Jones Commercial College, St. Louis, and then reported speeches in a congressional campaign.
In 1870 Stephens purchased a half interest in the Boone County Journal. Within a year he bought out his associates, changed the paper's name to Columbia Herald, and edited it for thirty-five years. Trenchant writing and clean typography made it known as "America's Model Weekly" (Missouri Historical Review, post, p. 546). Meanwhile, he founded printing companies in Jefferson City and Columbia, which built up court and state record business of national proportions.
In 1890 he was president of the National Editorial Association and of the Missouri Press Association; in 1905 he was elected vice-president of the International Press Congress at Liege. He performed an outstanding service to his state as chairman of the commission which had charge of the erection of the $4, 000, 000 Missouri capitol, completed in 1918 on a site overlooking the Missouri River.
The construction time, seven years, was shorter than that of any capitol of like size, and so scrupulously were the funds handled that it was possible to devote a large surplus to making the edifice a treasury of painting and sculpture.
For almost half his life he headed the board of curators of Stephens College, Columbia, named for his father, and he served in the same capacity for the University of Missouri from 1885 to 1887. As early as 1896 he proposed that the state support a school of journalism and when it was opened in 1908, he had the pleasure of seeing as its dean Walter Williams, whom as a young man he had engaged to help him with the Herald.
He had a deep interest in local history, dating from his youth when he wrote the story of Boone County, published as a series of articles in the Boone County Atlas in 1875, and in book form in 1882, with the title, History of Boone County, Missouri. Hard roads and many other progressive enterprises had his enthusiastic support. Friends urged him to become a candidate for governor, senator, and other offices, but he always declined.
In 1909 he published Around the World, an account of his own travel experiences. He died at his home in Columbia of the infirmities of age in his eighty-third year.
Edwin William Stephens helped found the State Historical Society of Missouri in 1898 and was its first president, serving for six years. His relationship with Walter Williams, who he employed at the Herald, would lead to the creation of the world's first school of journalism: the Missouri School of Journalism. He also founded the E. W. Stephens Publishing Company. Stephens served as president of the board of curators for both the University of Missouri and Stephens College, which was named after his father James L. Stephens.
(Excerpt from Around the World In the years 1907-8 the wr...)
He was a member of the State Historical Society of Missouri from 1898.
He married Laura Moss Stephens on September 26, 1871. The had three sons and a daughter, six children having previously died.
