How a Theater Critic Saved the Freedom of the Press in 1859

John Brown Today

In this episode, we meet the forgotten journalist, Edward "Ned" House, who was the clandestine reporter for Horace Greeley's New York Daily Tribune at the time the paper was banned in Virginia following John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry. Tribune, an antislavery Bohemian, worked as the Tribune's theater critic, but because he held Democratic party credentials, he was able to go to Charlestown and cover John Brown's last days, from late October until the day of the abolitionist's hanging. House filed reports secretly, smuggling most of them and risking discovery by an angry proslavery community that wanted Brown and his men dead, trial or not. Reflecting his detailed account, Freedom's Dawn: The Last Days of John Brown in Virginia (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), DeCaro provides a glimpse of Ned House's brave and unsung role in documenting John Brown's final weeks as a prisoner with clarity, detail, and wit--all at the expense of slaveholding society--and in defense of the freedom of the press.
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1. The Harper's Ferry raid and aftermath (00:00:25)

2. Rushed through a trial (00:01:40)

3. Ned House comes to Charlestown (00:02:30)

4. Antislavery papers banned in Virginia; the proslavery New York Herald (00:02:45)

5. Olcott: "The liberty of the press. . .was practically destroyed" (00:03:15)

6. Why Ned House was sent to Virginia (00:03:45)

7. House described (00:04:05)

8. Smuggled correspondence (00:04:45)

9. House's reportage described (00:05:20)

10. Local blacks were watching John Brown closely (00:05:45)

11. John Brown as prisoner (00:06:20)

12. Charlestown's paranoia and fear (00:07:05)

13. A dangerous job (00:07:45)

14. Petty, cowardly Virginians (00:08:30)

15. Brown, the most peaceful man in Charlestown (00:09:15)

16. Ned House stays until the end (00:10:00)

17. A forgotten eulogy (00:10:20)

18. Life after Charlestown (00:10:35)

19. Hidden in plain sight, overlooked by historians (00:11:25)

20. Legacy (00:12:00)