Background
Walter Page was born on August 15, 1855, in Cary, North Carolina to father Allison Francis "Frank" Page and his wife, Catherine Frances Raboteau. His father built the Page-Walker Hotel about 1868.
117 Physics Building, 120 Science Dr, Durham, NC 27708, USA
Walter was educated at Trinity College (Duke University).
114 College Ave, Ashland, VA 23005, USA
Walter studied at Randolph Macon College.
Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
Walter studied at Johns Hopkins University from 1871 to 1878.
ambassador Diplomat editor journalist publisher
Walter Page was born on August 15, 1855, in Cary, North Carolina to father Allison Francis "Frank" Page and his wife, Catherine Frances Raboteau. His father built the Page-Walker Hotel about 1868.
Young Page began his education at home, eventually ending up at Bingham, a private military academy. He entered Trinity College in 1871 with the intention of becoming a minister but transferred to Randolph-Macon College in Virginia. He did so well there that in 1876 he was given a scholarship for graduate study at Johns Hopkins University. He studied classical philology for two years before leaving to take employment as a teacher.
Page taught English literature for two years, after his graduation, but desired to see his own writing in print. He had already had several pieces published - a series of travel letters from Europe to the Raleigh Observer in 1877 and an article about the poet Henry Timrod in the South Atlantic Re-view in 1878. He bought a share in the Age, and soon he defunct ed a journal based in Louisville. When that venture collapsed, he began work as an investigative journalist for Missouri St. Joseph Gazette. An essay, “Study of an Old Southern Borough,” appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in 1881, whetting his taste for a bigger career. He soon left the Gazette and published short pieces in the New York World and Boston Post, and eventually accepted a position with the World in 1881. He met Woodrow Wilson while on assignment in 1882, a connection that would later serve him well.
In 1883, Page left the World and went back to Raleigh, North Carolina, where he founded the State Chronicle, a weekly newspaper. Reflecting his interest in Southern problems and practical engagement, the paper offered political commentary and educational and economic advice. This ambitious program did not come off as Page envisioned; disappointed with the results, in 1885 he again left for New York. He worked as a freelancer in New York, selling his work to such papers as the Boston Post and the Brooklyn Union, and to magazines such as The Independent. Eventually, he joined the Union as an editor and continued sending dispatches to his home paper, The State Chronicle. These dispatches, with their frank address of the obstacles to progress in the South - Southerners themselves, Page argued - ended up angering many of his fellow North Carolinians.
Page had a brief stint with the New York Evening Post in 1887, but by the end of that year, he had joined Forum. Page began as the business manager, but by 1891 had been appointed editor. At first, there was some doubt as to his editorial abilities, and, with his hearty attitude and talent for getting along with people, he was considered a bit of a lightweight. Rather than editing manuscripts profusely, Page focused on discovering and developing talent. And for all of his good nature, he was not afraid to reject manuscripts. As a result of his editing, the magazine was strengthened with contributions from such luminaries as Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. By 1893, the magazine had begun to show a profit, validating Page’s populist approach. From the Forum, he vaulted to the Atlantic Monthly in 1896 and officially became its sixth editor in 1898. Page brought with him a political bent more pronounced than his predecessors. He also brought a keen eye for the topical.
In 1899, along with Frank Doubleday, he formed the publishing house Doubleday, Page, and Company. He used this stake to publish his own journal, The World's Work; A History of Our Time, from 1900 to 1913. He used the magazine as a bully pulpit, advocating U.S. expansionism and social democracy. For ten years, the magazine lived up to this credo, and in the process showed the appeal of magazines devoted not just to “higher” pursuits of literature and art, but also to the analysis of the daily shifting of ideas that politics brings.
The page also managed to publish several of his own books of essays. Rebuilding the Commonwealth, published in 1902, which gave tribute to the human resources of the South. He published one attempt at fiction, The Southerner; The Autobiography of Nicholas Worth in 1909. The book was a retread of various columns that had appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in 1906. In 1913 he was appointed ambassador to Great Britain by President Wilson; he served with distinction and is one of only three Americans honored in Westminster Abbey. He died December 21, 1918, having had a strong influence on magazine journalism, and having spent his career forcefully purveying a compelling view of America’s future.
Page believed that a free and open education was fundamental to democracy. In 1902, he published The Rebuilding of Old Commonwealths, which emphasized that. He felt that nothing (class, economic means, race, or religion) should be a barrier to education.
Page’s populist, regionalist view of literature led him to laud writers like Sarah Orae Jewett. Booth Tarkington, and Joel Chandler Harris for their sense of place. He feared the trend toward a homogenization of American culture identified by the historian Frederick Jackson Turner. Page was more interested in writing that re-fleeted the speech and thought of the common man. He denied the merits of literary criticism and asserted those of public taste. What failed to sell was in all senses a failure. If for his time Page was in the forefront of realistic and naturalistic theory, he seemed to have an inflexible sense of what a novel should do, and to deny any scope to innovative and experimental fiction.
Page was a member of the Doubleday, Page & Company. Clubs: University, National Arts, New York.
Quotes from others about the person
“Under Page's direction, contemporary American life became the premier subject, and timeliness became the compelling publication principle for Atlantic pieces.” - Brent Hitchcock
On November 15, 1880, Page married Willa Alice Wilson. They had three sons and a daughter.