Charles Anderson Dana

Charles Anderson Dana , 1819-97, American newspaper editor, b. Hinsdale, N.H. He was a member of the Brook Farm community for five years. In 1847 he began 15 years on the New York Tribune, most of that time as managing editor. When Dana's views on the conduct of the Civil War became too militant for the editor, Horace Greeley, Dana resigned. His reports as a special investigator in the West for the War Dept. helped to build up official confidence in General Grant. In 1864, Dana became Assistant Secretary of War. His Recollections of the Civil War (1898) are valuable. He is best remembered for his great career as editor of "the newspaperman's newspaper," which began in 1868 when Dana became editor and part owner of the New York Sun. Though his editorials were erratic—he denounced the corruption in Grant's administration and refused to support labor unions and civil service reform—and often cynical, as a news editor he established high standards of readability and maintained a famous staff of writers. He also wrote The Art of Newspaper Making (1895) and Eastern Journeys (1898).

Bibliography: See biography by C. J. Rosebault (1931); study by C. Stone (1938, repr. 1969).

Dana, Charles Anderson (1819–97), born in New Hampshire, was associated as a young man with the Brook Farm community, but left this group to work on the New York Tribune, of which he was managing editor under Greeley (1849–62). Although he opposed militant labor, Dana's point of view was generally liberal, and he was a brilliant editorial and business manager. His chauvinistic policy at the outbreak of the Civil War led to his dismissal, after which he became a special investigator for the War Department, and assistant secretary of war (1864). He became part owner of the New York Sun in 1867 and edited it with a personal and perverse social and political policy but achieved his aim of “condensation, clearness, point, and …the most luminous and lively manner.” He edited the American Cyclopædia (1858–64) with George Ripley, and wrote his Recollections of the Civil War (1898).