Top of page

Chronicling America
National Endowment for the Humanities
BETA

Newspaper The Laurens Advertiser (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973

View All Front Pages

About The Laurens Advertiser (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973

The weekly Laurens Advertiser (1885-1973) served the citizens of Laurens County, located in the Piedmont region of South Carolina, during an era of economic transformation. In the late nineteenth century, textile manufacturing became a major industry. Cotton fields gave way to mill villages. The early twentieth century saw the establishment of major companies (Laurens Glass and Palmetto Bank), schools (Presbyterian College of South Carolina), and charitable organizations (Thornwell Orphanage and State Training School for the Feeble-Minded–now the Whitten Center, both located in Clinton). The Laurens Advertiser championed the county’s growth, acting as an agent for change as well as a news source.

John Conway Garlington established the Laurens Advertiser on August 5, 1885. Local wisdom has it that the Advertiser grew out of a newssheet published by Samuel Garlington, John’s brother, but this story has never been substantiated. In 1890, John Garlington sold the Advertiser to William Watts Ball for $1,500 and later went on to found the Spartanburg Daily Herald.  Ball edited and managed the Advertiser on an off-and-on basis for a number of years before becoming editor of the Charleston News and Courier.  His father, Beaufort Watts Ball, and sister, Sarah Ball Copeland, also served as editors of the Advertiser; his brother-in-law, Mason Langston Copeland, managed the paper. In 1910, owner and publisher Samuel Elmore Boney sold the Advertiser to Arthur and Alison Lee. After the First World War, Arthur Lee sold out his interest to his brother Alison who edited the paper for the next 40 years.

Like the majority of newspapers in South Carolina published for whites, the Laurens Advertiser generally supported the state Democratic Party, but its editors criticized Democratic and Republican leaders equally. Democratic Governor Benjamin “Pitchfork Ben” Tillman (1890-94) and his supporters, called Tillmanites, were frequent targets. The Advertiser’s independent streak set it apart from many of its peers, and at times, its own community. In 1910, William Ball recalled that “When I began to conduct the paper, it was under the shadow of a Farmer’s Alliance boycott … I learned then that political opposition is not to be feared by a newspaper if the paper ha[s] reasonable honesty and some intelligence behind it.” The Advertiser opposed the South Carolina Dispensary, the state-controlled system of alcohol sales created by Tillman, and favored local option and even statewide prohibition as alternative strategies. 

In 1971, the Laurens Advertiser became a semiweekly paper; the last issue appeared on April 16, 1973, after which it changed its name to the Laurens County Advertiser.

Provided By: University of South Carolina; Columbia, SC

About this Newspaper

Title

  • The Laurens Advertiser (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973

Dates of Publication

  • 1885-1973

Created / Published

  • Laurens, S.C. : J.C. Garlington and Co., -1973.

Headings

  • -  Laurens (S.C.)--Newspapers
  • -  Laurens County (S.C.)--Newspapers
  • -  South Carolina--Laurens
  • -  South Carolina--Laurens County
  • -  United States--South Carolina--Laurens--Laurens

Genre

  • Newspapers

Notes

  • -  Semiweekly, Nov. 15, 1971-Apr. 16, 1973
  • -  Began in 1885.
  • -  -v. 88, no. 80 (Apr. 16, 1973).
  • -  Archived issues are available in digital format as part of the Library of Congress Chronicling America online collection.
  • -  Laurens County advertiser (DLC)sn 93067773 (OCoLC)28173657

Medium

  • v.

Call Number/Physical Location

  • Newspaper

Library of Congress Control Number

  • sn93067760

OCLC Number

  • 460195295
  • n460195295

ISSN Number

  • 2166-9678

Succeeding Titles

Additional Metadata Formats

Availability

Rights & Access

The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety. Any newspapers in Chronicling America that were published less than 95 years ago are also believed to be in the public domain, but may contain some copyrighted third party materials. Researchers using newspapers published less than 95 years ago should be alert for modern content (for example, registered and renewed for copyright and published with notice) that may be copyrighted. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

The NEH awardee responsible for producing each digital object is presented in the Chronicling America page display, below the page image – e.g. Image produced by the Library of Congress. For more information on current NDNP awardees, see https://www.loc.gov/ndnp/listawardees.html.

For more information on Library of Congress policies and disclaimers regarding rights and reproductions, see https://www.loc.gov/homepage/legal.html

Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

The Laurens Advertiser Laurens, S.C. 1885 to 1973. (Laurens, SC), Jan. 1 1885. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn93067760/.

APA citation style:

(1885, January 1) The Laurens Advertiser Laurens, S.C. 1885 to 1973. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/sn93067760/.

MLA citation style:

The Laurens Advertiser Laurens, S.C. 1885 to 1973. (Laurens, SC) 1 Jan. 1885. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/sn93067760/.