lecture

2025 Whitehall Lecture Series

The New York Newspaper Publishers of the Gilded Age 

Free for Museum Members at the Patron level and above

$20 for all other Museum Members

$48 for non-Members. Includes required Museum Admission

Lecture Series Ticket for Museum Members $90
(for all five lectures)

Purchase Member Series Tickets

Lecture Series Ticket for non-Members $230
(for all five lectures, includes required Museum Admission.)

Purchase non-Member Series Tickets

All Lecture begins at 3:00 pm

The Annual Whitehall Lecture Series presents The New York Newspaper Publishers of the Gilded Age, at 3:00 p.m. each Sunday from February 2nd to March 2nd. Experts and authors will speak about the publishers that were responsible for producing the newspapers of New York during the Gilded Age.  The Series will include presentations by:

Alex S. Jones, author of The Trust: The Private And Powerful Family Behind the New York Times, will give a lecture about Adolph Ochs

James McGrath Morris, author of Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power, will give a lecture about Joseph Pulitzer

Thomas A. Kligerman, who will give a lecture on James Gordon Bennett, Jr. and the New York Herald

Dr. James M. Lundberg, author of Horace Greeley: Print, Politics, and the Failure of American Nationhood, will give a lecture about Horace Greeley

Lecturer to be announced. A lecture about the sensational rise of William Randolph Hearst

When possible, each lecture will be followed by a book signing with the author. Visit the H. M. Flagler & Co.® Museum Store for a wide selection of books related to the Whitehall Lecture Series.

Website visitors may watch the lectures via a Livestream broadcast. There is no charge to watch the Livestream lectures.

Sponsored by:

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William Randolph Hearst

William Randolph Hearst Gray 72 300pxw

3:00 pm, February 2, 2025 

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William Randolph Hearst was an American newspaper publisher who built the foundation of one of the nation’s greatest media empires. In 1895, the young newspaperman moved from San Francisco to New York City to create the most successful daily of his time, the New York Journal, and compete with Joseph Pulitzer, a powerful journalist and newspaper publisher of the New York World. Hearst’s Journal and Pulitzer’s World battled through the 1896 election and the Spanish-American War. The rivalry between the two papers gave rise to yellow journalism, a style of reporting that uses sensationalized news and conspicuous headlines to attract readers. Through his coverage of Cuba’s struggle for independence from Spain and the U.S. government’s intervention, Hearst emerged as a powerful private citizen, politcal figure, and publisher that dominated the media industry during the Gilded Age. He later expanded to magazines, creating the largest newspaper and magazine business in the world.

Lecturer to be announced

Joseph Pulitzer

Joseph Pulitzer bw3:00 pm, February 9, 2025

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Best known today for the prize that bears his name, Joseph Pulitzer transformed American journalism and mass media consumption by making the newspaper an essential feature to urban life. It was not until after serving in the Civil War, that Pulitzer, a Jewish Hungarian immigrant, started his publishing career. In Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power, James McGrath Morris gives an intriguing portrayal of Pulitzer’s long-ranging impact on American politics through the power of his newspapers. Not only did he use the power of the press to advance his progressive political agenda, Pulitzer also used his influence to shed light on the vast social changes of the industrial revolution. Morris skillfully depicts Pulitzer’s transition from a wealthy champion for democracy to a lonely, blind wanderer desperate for a cure. Despite his unfortunate demise, Pulitzer remains an iconic American politician and publisher who changed the landscape of mass media.

Lecturer: James McGrath Morris

James McGrath Morris is an award-winning and New York Times bestselling biographer. He is the author five biographies and three works of narrative non-fiction. His most recent work is Tony Hillerman: A Life, which was a finalist for an Edgar Award. He lives in Santa Fe, NM, and serves as Executive Director of the New Mexico Writers organization.

Adolph Ochs

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3:00 pm, February 16, 2025

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The Trust: The Private And Powerful Family Behind the New York Times is a detailed and lively narrative that reveals the domestic dramas of one of the most renowned and influential families in twentieth-century America. The Ochs-Sulzberger family have chaired The New York Times for more than a century. In gripping detail, authors Susan E. Tift and Alex S. Jones examine the lives of the powerful yet private dynasty that shaped the pages of an iconic newspaper. The book explores how a publisher with a complicated Jewish legacy fears his anxieties will be reflected in the paper’s style. The story follows Ochs’ descendants as they gain control of a paper in the form of a trust while managing dynastic pressures in a post-war era. Based on extensive research and over 500 interviews, The Trust focuses on a family’s role in creating and nurturing a great American institution and devoting their life to its success.

Lecturer: Alex S. Jones

Alex S. Jones was a journalist for The New York Times from 1983 until 1992. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1987 for his reporting on the news media. During his career, he and his wife Susan E. Tifft wrote two books about newspaper dynasties, one being The Trust. Published in 1999, The Trust was selected by Time magazine as one of the five best nonfiction books of the year, and it was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Horace Greeley

Horace Greeley headshot bw 3:00 pm, February 23, 2025

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In 1841, Horace Greeley founded the New-York Tribune, a daily newspaper that catered first to the American Whig party until Greeley helped organize the newly emerging Republican Party. In Horace Greeley: Print, Politics, and the Failure of American Nationhood, Dr. James M Lundberg explores the New-York Tribune’s impact on New York’s media market and dissects Greeley’s longing for a morally consistent American nationhood. During the 1850s, Greeley used his newspaper to advocate for the anti-slavery North. Lundberg tracks the rise and fall of Greeley’s national profile and reanimates his pursuit of an erratic course that eventually led to a failed candidacy. Although a long-misunderstood figure, Greeley remains one of the most significant American journalists of the nineteenth century.

Lecturer: Dr. James M. Lundberg

Dr. James M. Lundberg is the director of the Undergraduate Program in History and an assistant professor of the practice at the University of Notre Dame. His research and teaching focus on the early American republic and the United States in the nineteenth century.

James Gordon Bennett, Jr.

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3:00 pm, March 2, 2025

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The son of the founder and publisher of the New York Herald, James Gorden Bennett, Jr. was born in New York in 1841. Educated in the United States and France, young Bennett took over his father’s newspaper at 25 years old in 1867. He was a gifted editor and promoter who raised the New York Herald’s profile on the world stage by sending Henry Morton Stanley to Africa to find missionary and explorer David Livingstone. In exchange for financially backing the expedition, the Herald was provided with the exclusive account of Stanley’s progress.

Aside from contributing much to the paper’s strength, Bennett Jr. was an accomplished yachtsman who commanded his yacht Henrietta while she was in Federal Service. He also won the world’s first transatlantic yacht race, and he organized the first tennis match and first polo match in the United States.

Lecturer: Thomas A. Klingerman

Thomas A. Kligerman is an accomplished architect and the founding partner of Kligerman Architecture and Design. After being raised in Connecticut and New Mexico, Kilgerman spent time in France and England as a student and eventually earned an architecture degree from Yale. Before launching his solo practice, he began his career at Robert A.M. Stern Architects and then partnered in the firm Ike Kligerman Barkley. He also serves on the boards of numerous charitable and educational institutions.