Henry Watterson and the New South: The Politics of Empire, Free Trade, and Globalization

Henry Watterson (1840–1921), editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal from the 1860s through WWI, was one of the most important and widely read newspaper editors in American history. An influential New South supporter of sectional reconciliation and economic development, Watterson was also the nation’s premier advocate of free trade and globalization. Watterson’s vision of a prosperous and independent South within an expanding American empire was unique among prominent Southerners and Democrats. He helped articulate the bipartisan embrace of globalization that accompanied America’s rise to unmatched prosperity and world power. Daniel S. Margolies restores Watterson to his place at the heart of late nineteenth-century southern and American history by combining biographical narrative with an evaluation of Watterson’s unique involvement in the politics of free trade and globalization.