Jonathan Worth Daniels was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 author, editor, and White House Press Secretary

White House Press Secretary

The White House Press Secretary is a senior White House official whose primary responsibility is to act as spokesperson for the government administration....

. Daniels' term serving as White House Press Secretary

White House Press Secretary

The White House Press Secretary is a senior White House official whose primary responsibility is to act as spokesperson for the government administration....

 was the shortest since the inception of the position in 1937. He held the position in 1945 under Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...

 and Harry S. Truman

Harry S. Truman

Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...

. For most of his life, he worked at The News & Observer

The News & Observer

The News & Observer is the regional daily newspaper of the Research Triangle area of the U.S. State of North Carolina. The N&O, as it is popularly called, is based in Raleigh and also covers Durham, Cary, and Chapel Hill. The paper also has substantial readership in most of the state east of...

, and later founded The Island Packet

The Island Packet

The Island Packet is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper owned by The McClatchy Company serving primarily the residents of southern Beaufort County, South Carolina, United States, particularly the towns of Hilton Head Island and Bluffton...

.

Education

Jonathan Worth Daniels attended Centennial School in Raleigh from 1908 to 1913. When his father, Josephus Daniels

Josephus Daniels

Josephus Daniels was a newspaper editor and publisher from North Carolina who was appointed by United States President Woodrow Wilson to serve as Secretary of the Navy during World War I...

, became United States Secretary of the Navy

United States Secretary of the Navy

The Secretary of the Navy of the United States of America is the head of the Department of the Navy, a component organization of the Department of Defense...

 in 1913, the family moved to Washington, D.C., where he studied at the John Eaton School from 1913 to 1915, and St. Albans School

St. Albans School (Washington, D.C.)

St. Albans School is an independent college preparatory school for boys in grades 4–12, located in Washington, D.C. The school is named after Saint Alban, traditionally regarded as the first British martyr. Within the St...

 from 1915 to 1918. Daniels attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States...

, and graduated in 1921 with a B.A. He continued at UNC for graduate school, earning an M.A. in English in 1921. As a student in Chapel Hill, he edited The Daily Tar Heel

The Daily Tar Heel

The Daily Tar Heel is the independent student newspaper of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It was founded on February 23, 1893, and became a daily newspaper in 1929. The paper places a focus on university news and sports, but it also includes heavy coverage of Orange County and...

and participated in the Carolina Playmakers. Daniels passed the North Carolina bar exam despite failing out of Columbia University Law School, but never practiced law.

Books

• Clash of Angels

New York: Brewer and Warren (1930)

• The Devil's Backbone: The Story of the Natchez Trace

New York: McGraw-Hill (1962) (Also published in later editions)

• The End of Innocence

Philadelphia: J. P. Lippincott & Co.

J. B. Lippincott Company

J. B. Lippincott & Co. was an American publishing house founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1836 by Joshua Ballinger Lippincott.Formed by descendants of the Religious Society of Friends, Joshua Lippincott's company began selling a line of Bibles, prayer books and other religious works before...

 (1954) (Also published in later editions)

• Frontier on the Potomac

New York: Macmillan (1946) (Also published in a later edition)

• The Gentlemanly Serpent and Other Columns from a Newspaperman in Paradise: From the Pages of the Hilton Head Island Packet, 1970-73

Columbia: University of South Carolina Press (1974)

• The Man of Independence

Philadelphia: J. P. Lippincott & Co. (1950) (Also published in a later editions)

• Mosby: Gray Ghost of the Confederacy

Philadelphia: J. P. Lippincott & Co. (1959)

• Ordeal of Ambition: Jefferson, Hamilton, Burr

Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday (1970)

• Prince of Carpetbaggers

Philadelphia: J. P. Lippincott & Co. (1958)

• The Randolphs of Virginia

Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday (1972)

• Robert E. Lee

Boston: Houghton, Mifflin (1960)

• A Southerner Discovers New England

New York: Macmillan (1940)

• A Southerner Discovers the South

New York: Macmillan, (1938) (Also published in a later edition)

• Stonewall Jackson

New York: Random House (1959)

• Tar Heels: A Portrait of North Carolina

New York: Dodd, Mead (1941) (Also published in a later edition)

• They Will Be Heard: America's Crusading Newspaper Editors

New York: McGraw-Hill (1965)

• The Times Between the Wars: Armistice to Pearl Harbor

Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday (1966) (Also published in a later edition)

• Washington Quadrille: The Dance beside the Documents

Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday (1968)

• White House Witness, 1942-1945

Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday (1975)

External links

• Inventory of the Jonathan Daniels Papers, 1865-1982, in the Southern Historical Collection
  Southern Historical Collection
  The Southern Historical Collection is a repository of distinct archival collections at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill which document the culture and history of the American South...
  
  , UNC-Chapel Hill
  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States...
  
  
• Oral History Interview with Jonathan Worth Daniels at Oral Histories of the American South
• Jennifer Ritterhouse, "Dixie Destinations: Rereading Jonathan Daniels' A Southerner Discovers the South", Southern Spaces, 20 May 2010.