Traces the history of newspaper columnists in America from the Civil War era to the present.

The figure of the newspaper columnist, which emerged in America in the mid-nineteenth century, plays a key role in modern newspapers. Columnists nowadays add a decidedly personal touch to the newspapers in which they appear—an important consideration in an increasingly impersonal, corporate, no-nonsense medium. This volume provides the most complete look available at the emergence of the columnist and at who the leading columnists have been from the Civil War era to the present. In total, 780 columnists and their work are examined chronologically—according to when their columns first appeared—within several categories: early (1800s), humor, column poets, syndicated political, other syndicated, local, and minority.