University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States
Daniels attended University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill.
Career
Gallery of Josephus Daniels
Gallery of Josephus Daniels
Gallery of Josephus Daniels
From left to right: American statesman Franklin D. Roosevelt, Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim, Thomas Edison and Josephus Daniels.
Gallery of Josephus Daniels
Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt (L), Mrs. Woodrow Wilson (C) and Josephus Daniels talking at President Franklin D. Roosevelt's inauguration.
Gallery of Josephus Daniels
Gallery of Josephus Daniels
Edith Galt Wilson with former Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels at the opening of the new Woodrow Wilson house in New York City circa 1944.
Gallery of Josephus Daniels
President Wilson with his cabinet just before the outbreak of World War I in April 1917. Next to President Wilson on the left sits William Gibbs McAdoo, then James McReynolds, Josephus Daniels, David F. Houston, William B. Wilson, William C. Redfield, Franklin K. Lane, Albert S. Burleson, Lindley M. Garrison, Secretary of War and in the place of honor at the right of the President, William J. Bryan.
Gallery of Josephus Daniels
Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels congratulates Lieutenant Commander Read and his crew on their successful transatlantic flight.
Gallery of Josephus Daniels
Left to right: Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt and Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels stand with Major George K. Shuler, Major Alphonse De Carre, Gunnery Sergeant Charles F. Hoffman, and Major General George Barnett at an awards ceremony for members of the Marine Corps' honorary society of Devil Dogs.
Gallery of Josephus Daniels
Secretary of Navy Josephus Daniels and Miss Mabel Boardman, head of the American Red Cross.
Gallery of Josephus Daniels
Josephus Daniels of North Carolina as head of the new transportation agency
Gallery of Josephus Daniels
Josephus Daniels
Gallery of Josephus Daniels
Josephus Daniels as secretary of the Navy inspecting Marines Camp at Pontanezen, Finistere, France.
Gallery of Josephus Daniels
Atop the windswept sand dune called Kill Devil Hill near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, a granite pylon was unveiled on November 19th, commemorating the first motor-driven plane flight made by the Wright Brothers in 1903. The ceremonies were held in a driving rainstorm. This photo was made at the base of the pylon and shows - Miss Ruth Nichols, Aviatrix, as she unveiled the monument. On the right is Orville Wright, surviving brother; Secretary of War, Patrick Hurley, and Josephus Daniels, former Secretary of the Navy.
President Wilson with his cabinet just before the outbreak of World War I in April 1917. Next to President Wilson on the left sits William Gibbs McAdoo, then James McReynolds, Josephus Daniels, David F. Houston, William B. Wilson, William C. Redfield, Franklin K. Lane, Albert S. Burleson, Lindley M. Garrison, Secretary of War and in the place of honor at the right of the President, William J. Bryan.
Left to right: Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt and Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels stand with Major George K. Shuler, Major Alphonse De Carre, Gunnery Sergeant Charles F. Hoffman, and Major General George Barnett at an awards ceremony for members of the Marine Corps' honorary society of Devil Dogs.
Atop the windswept sand dune called Kill Devil Hill near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, a granite pylon was unveiled on November 19th, commemorating the first motor-driven plane flight made by the Wright Brothers in 1903. The ceremonies were held in a driving rainstorm. This photo was made at the base of the pylon and shows - Miss Ruth Nichols, Aviatrix, as she unveiled the monument. On the right is Orville Wright, surviving brother; Secretary of War, Patrick Hurley, and Josephus Daniels, former Secretary of the Navy.
(Born during the Civil War, Josephus Daniels has lived a r...)
Born during the Civil War, Josephus Daniels has lived a remarkably full life and played a substantial part in one of the most significant periods of our nation's history. This volume of the autobiography of Wilson's secretary of the navy covers the period up to the year 1893 and is concerned with his early interests, his schooling, and his early ventures into the field of journalism.
Josephus Daniels was an American editor, newspaperman and author. He was a progressive Democrat, and publisher from North Carolina who was appointed by the United States President Woodrow Wilson to serve as Secretary of the Navy during World War I.
Background
Josephus Daniels was born on May 18, 1862, in Washington, North Carolina. He was the son of Josephus Daniels, Sr., a shipbuilder, and Mary Cleaves Seabrook Daniels, a dressmaker and postmistress of Wilson, North Carolina.
His father, Josephus, Sr., refused to join the Confederacy, and was ambushed and killed in 1865. His mother, Mary Cleaves Seabrook Daniels, opened a dressmaking shop to support the family, and was later named the town postmistress. The Daniels lost three homes in a fire in just six years. Young Daniels was not derailed by these difficulties, however.
Education
Josephus Daniels studied at Wilson Collegiate Institute. He also attended University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill.
During his life, he was also distinguished with various honorary doctorates, from such colleges as the University of North Carolina and Washington and Lee University.
Josephus Daniels came to journalism early - with the help of his brother Charles, he printed an amateur newspaper called the Cornucopia, and acted as a correspondent and subscription salesman for the Charlotte Observer and Hale's Weekly while still a young student. He left school before graduating in order to edit the weekly paper, the Wilson Advance. This was the beginning of an auspicious career that would embrace both politics and journalism. Two years after beginning his stint as editor of the Advance, he took out a mortgage on his mother’s house and bought a controlling interest in the paper.
In 1885, when he was only twenty-three, he was elected president of the North Carolina Press Association. That year, he also bought a controlling interest in the Raleigh State Chronicle. He turned the paper from a weekly to a daily in 1889, but hard times forced him to sell the paper in 1892. He was also the state printer during this time. Meanwhile, Daniels studied law at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill for one summer, and passed the bar exam, though he did not intend to practice law; he also published two small newspapers, in Rocky Mount and Kingston. Daniels, with his newspaper connections, had come to be a prominent member of Raleigh society.
Daniels became a member of the Watauga Club, an influential group of young progressives who believed in the necessity of training and education in the new industries in order to make North Carolina a successful manufacturing state. The group was instrumental in establishing the state’s land grant institution, North Carolina State University at Raleigh, as well as pushing for federal aid and education for African Americans. Daniels parlayed his high local profile into a position with the federal government, as chief of the appointments division in the Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C. He returned to Raleigh after a year and bought The News and Observer at auction, raising money by selling shares to prominent local Democrats.
Daniels supported southerner Woodrow Wilson in the 1912 presidential election. After Wilson's victory, he was appointed as Secretary of the Navy. Secretary Daniels held the post from 1913 to 1921, throughout the Wilson administration, overseeing the Navy during World War I. Franklin D. Roosevelt, a future US president, served as his Assistant Secretary of the Navy.
Over his career, several collections of his speeches about the Navy appeared, as well as an anecdotal history of the United States Navy, Our Navy at War, in 1922; the book was called “a vivid and interesting account,” by the American Political Science Review but was also criticized for being sloppily written. He also wrote a biography of Woodrow Wilson in 1924, The Life of Woodrow Wilson, 1856-1924. In 1933, Daniels was made an ambassador to Mexico. There was considerable animosity at first, since it was Daniels who had ordered the occupation of Vera Cruz. However, he won over his hosts with his sense of fairness, integrity, and love of democracy.
In 1941, Daniels’ wife became ill, and he returned to the states. Daniels had begun publishing his autobiography in 1939. Tar Heel Editor was the first installment, followed by Editor in Politics in 1941, The Wilson Era: Years of Peace, 1910 - 1917 in 1944, The Wilson Era: Years of War and After, 1917 - 1923 in 1946, and Shirt-Sleeve Diplomat, published in 1947.
Daniels turned the News and Observer into an aggressive exponent of Democracy, free from factions and favoritism. His belief in democracy was powerful, and led him to continue to pursue his career in politics. For twenty years he was the Democratic national committeeman from North Carolina and served as chairman of the publicity department of Democratic headquarters for Woodrow Wilson’s campaign for the presidency.
His work as Secretary of the Navy reflected his democratic instincts. He insisted on setting up training schools for enlisted men and opposed seniority. He was also given credit for arranging the passage to Europe through dangerous waters of two million infantry members without incident. A book of his speeches delivered as Secretary of the Navy, Navy and the Nation, was published in 1919; a review in the Nation referred to them as “patriotic and moral preachments in homely, rather threadbare phrases.”
Views
Daniels had a strong sense of integrity. He believed that a newspaper should be like a preacher - always upholding righteousness. Daniels fiercely guarded both his ideals and the integrity of his newspapers, writing in an editorial.
He also demonstrated that it is possible to govern relations between the peoples by democratic inspiration and to substitute feelings of mutual respect, friendship, and the rule of law for the impulse of brute force.
Quotations:
“Men who pay their good money for a newspaper do so to get the news, and if they find there is a ‘back-door’ to the newspaper office through which large advertisers or stock-holders can enter to suppress the news, they rightly feel that they are not getting the worth of their money.”
Membership
Josephus Daniels was a member of the Watauga Club.
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
“Josephus Daniels became the dominant political editor of North Carolina.” - Joseph L. Morrison
Connections
On May 2, 1888, Daniels married Addie Worth Bagley. They had four sons and one daughter.
Josephus Daniels: The Small-d Democrat
This first full-length biography documents the strong family ties and loyalties that shaped Daniels's character and demonstrates the extent to which his religion bred not only the merry puritanism but also the moral courage that figured in his career and in his personal life.