Victor Rosewater

Born 1871

Died 1940

Image of Victor Rosewater

Victor Rosewater was the son of Edward Rosewater (1841-1906), founder of the Omaha Bee newspaper. Under the father's editorship, The Omaha Bee came to be regarded as one of Nebraska and the West's most influential newspapers. Victor Rosewater started at the paper as a newsboy.

Victor was educated in the East, at Johns Hopkins University, and at Columbia University, where he obtained his bachelor's and doctorate, studying history, economics, and political science. He took over as managing editor at the Bee in 1895 and succeeded his father as the paper's overall editor in 1906, on his father's death. Victor was active in politics, as a member of the Republican National Committee (Chair, 1912), and in civic affairs. He was Director of the Omaha Public Library from 1894-1905.

The Bee did not wield as much influence under Victor Rosewater's leadership as it had under his father. It did, however, maintain its opposition to William Jennings Bryan, populism, Prohibition, and woman suffrage. In 1919 the Bee's incendiary editorials on racial matters did much to incite the riots in which the Douglas County Court House burned and Will Brown, a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman, was lynched. The paper was sold to a local buyer in 1920, was eventually acquired by William Randoph Hearst and then resold to the Omaha World-Herald, which promptly shut it down.

Victor moved to Philadelphia in the early 1920s and helped plan the Philadelphia Sesquicentennial, a World's Fair that celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 1926. He continued to work as a journalist with columns in various newspapers. He helped found the American Jewish Committee, and eventually left his family papers (mostly his and his fathers papers) to the American Jewish Archives. The NSHS has the Rosewater Family Papers: 1853-1940, (Collection RG3628.AM ) as copies on microfilm. The originals are in the American Jewish Archives.

Rosewater wrote an unpublished biography of his father, and books on municipal finance and cooperative news reporting.

dsc

Author Of

Journalism

Keywords

Journalism; Politics; Omaha Nebraska--History

Occupation

Journalist
Newspaper Editor
Public Library Director

Bibliography

Special Assessments: A Study in Municipal Finance. 1893.
A History of Cooperative News Gathering in the United States. 1930.

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