Results tagged “J.W. Gitt” from York Town Square

Joseph N. Gallagher of York, Pa., found this Gazette Almanac in his grandfather's belongings. His grandfather was the late Rev. Norman Ort, founder and minister of West York's Four Square Gospel Church. Also of interest: York County newspaper gets new wardrobe, some nips and tucks and 1874 York Daily: Is it worth anything? and Newspaper's founding date hard to pin down.

Joe Gallagher found a prize among the stuff his late grandfather Norman Ort left behind: a Handy Almanac Encyclopedia and Year Book, dated 1916.

The guts of the 142-page softcover book contained national information for those relatively quiet moment before the deadly years of American involvement in World War I and the Spanish influenza epidemic.

The cover, inside title page and back cover were custom printed to tout The Gazette of York, Pa., then operating out of its 35-37 E. King St. plant.

There's a story there... .

Lee Schwan's Web site includes a bunch of compelling photos from northwest York, Pa.'s Yorktowne Homes, built as housing for defense workers in World War II. Schwan wrote in an e-mail, published in a previous post, that he hopes someone writes about living in Yorktowne in the 1940s and 1950s. Background posts: Just try to resist this memory-tugging photograph of northwest York, Pa. and World War II-era Yorkers welcomed nondescript housing and Linked in with neat York County history stuff - Oct. 10, 2009.

From the mailbag: A mixed bag of links to a bit of everything around York County:

- York County history enthusiasts should keep their eye on e-Bay for bits of history. An e-mailer pointed out that copies of The Morning Journal are available on there. The York Dispatch published this short-lived newspaper during a short-lived strike by workers of competitor The Gazette and Daily in 1970. The Gazette came back after that strike as the York Daily Record, owned by District Attorney Harold Fitzkee and partners who had purchased it from J.W. Gitt. That comeback spelled the demise of The Morning Journal... .

- More neat stuff below. -

This iconic Associated Press photo shows then-President Jimmy Carter, center, with Harold Denton, left, of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and then-Gov. Dick Thornburgh, left rear, in Three Mile Island's Unit 2 control room on April 1, 1979. Two weeks earlier, the York Daily Record's reporting suggested an accident could happen. (See additional photo, video below.) Background posts: Three Mile Island emergency indelibly written into memories and Availability of microfilm an oft-posed question and Publishing legend Gitt vocal about nuclear power.

The partial meltdown of Three Mile Island's Unit 2 reactor put York countians to the test 30 years ago.

Just check out the oral histories that are part of the York Daily Record/Sunday News' "Remember" series if you need a refresher.

Or read the stories about the accident's impact, with a graphic of what went wrong that March day in 1979.

The York Daily Record was tested, too.

About two weeks earlier, a major reporting project suggested that a major nuclear accident could occur... .

The Gazette and Daily, a supporter of one of Harry S. Truman's opponents in the 1948 presidential election, played the story of the president's visit at the bottom of its front page. Background posts: Harry S. Truman's first York visit: 'A statesman is only a dead politician' and Crowd to Truman on second York visit: 'Give 'em h---, Harry' and Other presidential visits listed.

Harry S. Truman's June 1948 appearance was the first by a president in York since Franklin Delano Roosevelt's train passed through in 1934 and 1938.

Truman's train stopped at the West Market Street crossing, and he spoke from its platform to a crowd estimated at 5,000.

"Only about a third of you turned out to vote for this Congress," Truman, candidate for election to the chief executive's seat he had assumed upon Roosevelt's death, said.

"And you got exactly what you deserved." ...

Here's a hint to answer part of York County Smarts quiz, Part IV: This former York County legislator made history when she became the first woman elected to the General Assembly in the 1960s. (See additional photo below). York County smarts quiz, Part I, Part II, Part III.

Since its beginning, Pennsylvania has accomplished awesome results in the civilized arts -- more so than other areas of the United States of comparable size.

So says Philip Klein in his "History of Pennsylvania."

"Every region generates some creative people," he and co-author Ari Hogenboom wrote, "but Pennsylvania produced them by the hundreds."

Why?

Credit it to a diverse population, William Penn's quest for liberty and a varied, resource-rich geographic landscape.

Benjamin Franklin is Klein's Exhibit A of a Pennsylvania who showed original thought coupled with practical experiment.

All this could help explain why York countians have long made their mark on the state and national landscape... .

When voters knocked Republican Congressman Chester Gross from office in 1948, Gazette and Daily's Walt Partymiller translated the vote into a cartoon. Background posts: York College prof to speak about York's 'Voices from the Past', J.W. Gitt: 'Just say it ... straight out' and Publishing legend Gitt vocal about nuclear power.

When longtime Gazette and Daily cartoonist Walt Partymiller died a few years ago, eulogists paid proper restrict for the man who everyone in town seemed to know.

One person paying tribute said that Partymiller never said a bad word about anybody.

Now, that's a tough reputation to bestow on anyone, much less a newspaperman who was full of opinions... .

The left-of-center Gazette and Daily was no fan of GOP Congressman Chester Gross, who was voted out of office in 1948. In fact, Gross had defeated the newspaper's owner, Democrat J.W. Gitt, for the congressional seat four years earlier. So, for Gitt, Gross's loss would have meant rough justice. Background posts: In York County and beyond, presidential races have produced rages through the ages, York cartoonist's work helps celebrate peace activism and Newspaper's founding date hard to pin down.

On Election Day, 2008, a large voter registration lead would make Republican incumbent Todd Platts the favorite over Dem Phil Avillo for the 19th district seat in the U.S. House. Indeed, early results show Platts is leading .

Sixty years ago, the race went the other way.

You've heard it.

Maybe you've even said it.

This is the most emotional U.S. presidential election ever. Or political nastiness surrounding this Obama-McCain race has never reached such lows. Or the media has never been more one-sided.

Well, I tried to bash these myths in a York Sunday News column (11/02/08). American politics have always been rough and tumble... .

This view comes from the porch of the Gitt Mansion, although its owner, The Gazette and Daily's J.W. Gitt, spent much time in its library. Background posts: Old York newspaper won't die or fade away, Gitt and his Gazette sported same eccentricities and Two ornate mansions that Hanover Shoe built.

He would oversee a left-leaning newspaper that would cause waves locally and across the oceans.

He would play some golf and then catch a trolley back to the tranquility of his Hershey Hill mansion.

There, he would spend evenings in his large library re-equipping himself to fire darts the next day against the Cold War.

A recent edition of Spaces magazine, published by the York Daily Record/Sunday News, explores his evening retreat:

Mary Allienne Hamilton spent many hours in J.W. Gitt's library, pictured here, in researching her Gitt biography "Rising from the Wilderness," published by the York County Heritage Trust (see additional photo below). Background posts: Cuban expert Jim Higgins: 'He was just another journalist ... with opinions', York newspaperman J.W. Gitt rejected Barry Goldwater's ad money and McCarthy probe could not corral York County's Gitt.

Mary Hamilton's "J.W. Gitt and His Legendary Newspaper: 'The Gazette and Daily' of York, Pa." has captured a major national award.

Her biography of this maverick newspaper owner won "Best Book in Media History" in

American Journalism Historians Association judging.

It was up against Harry Reasoner's biography, the press and the early abolition movement and the origins of mass culture, among other entries.

Judges comments follow:

The FBI checked in on York (Pa.) Gazette and Daily editor James Higgins for years after his work showed sympathy for Cuba and Fidel Castro. Background posts: York cartoonist's work helps celebrate peace activism, J.W. Gitt: 'Just say it ... straight out' and Old York newspaper won't die or fade away.

For decades, people tried to tie J.W. Gitt's Gazette and Daily to the Communist Party or some revolutionary cause... .

Barry Goldwater, right, and his veep candidate William Miller took extreme positions that did not set well with York County voters in 1964. York countians backed Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson by a 57,366 to 32,846 vote. Goldwater's politics didn't set well with Gazette and Daily owner J.W. Gitt either. He refused the Republican's advertising. The image above comes the York County Goldwater campaign's letterhead. Background posts: A Newspaper afraid ...; Newspaper's founding date hard to pin down and McCarthy probe could not corral J.W. Gitt.

Republicans blasted J.W. Gitt, maverick owner of The Gazette and Daily, for his decision to ban advertising for Barry Goldwater in 1964.

He caught it from the same local ACLU branch that had honored him in 1956.

Some of his staff was critical.

And Mary Hamilton, author of the recently published Gitt biography "Rising from the Wilderness," writes that the longtime newspaperman's family thought he should accept the advertising... .

For decades, Walt Partymiller drew editorial cartoons for The Gazette and Daily, forerunner of the York Daily Record. This is one of his cartoons showing Linus Pauling that is part of a new Web site celebrating the scientist and the International Peace Movement. Background posts: McCarthy probe could not corral J.W. Gitt and Publishing legend Gitt vocal about nuclear power.

Nobel Prize laureate Linus Pauling was a friend and regular correspondent with J.W. Gitt, longtime owner of The Gazette and Daily.

Pauling and Gitt were both peace activists, and Gitt made sure Pauling and his views made their way onto the pages of his daily newspaper in York.

Pauling was profiled in a least three sympathetic Gazette and Daily editorial cartoons... .

J.W. Gitt plays a round at Hanover Country Club at age 88. Gitt helped found the country club. This photograph came from Mary Hamilton's recent biography on Gitt, "Rising from the Wilderness." Background post: J.W. Gitt: 'Just say it ... straight out'

Gordon Freireich, York Daily Record/Sunday News columnist, raised the question in a recent piece about why the Hanover Country Club is in Abbottstown, not Hanover.

Mary Hamilton devoted many pages to the club and its founding in her recently published biography of J.W. Gitt, "Rising from the Wilderness."... .

A letter published in the York Daily Record this week criticized us for not supporting Geno's Steaks for posting a sign requiring English when ordering.

"The York Daily Record will never change," he wrote. "You are still the same commie newspaper as your predecessor, The Gazette and Daily."

It's been a while since I've heard the "commie" claim levied against us. (Maybe people think it, but seldom say it.)

That label stuck to J.W. Gitt's Gazette and Daily even though the FBI could not connect the Cold War publisher with the Communist Party. And his biographer says he resigned the Progressive Party because of Communist infiltration.

It was 10 years ago that I wrote about the lack of true evidence linking the leftist York County publisher and his newspaper with the Communist Party.

I'll repeat it here:

York County Congressman Jimmy Lind probably winced partway through a letter from a constituent in July 1950.

"I am sick and tired of the pussy-footing that has gone on in York with the hotbed of local Communists maintained, led, and sponsored by Josiah W. Gitt ... ." the letter said. ...