Lydia Starr McPherson, A Woman of the Century

Lydia Ann Starr Hunter McPherson (pen name, Urania; August 11, 1827 – December 3, 1903) was an American newspaper editor. She founded the first newspapers in Oklahoma and Texas published by a woman.

Early life and family

Lydia Ann Starr was born in Warnock, Ohio, the daughter of William F. Starr and Sarah Lucas Starr.[1] When she was 12, the family moved to Iowa, and at the age of 17, she became a teacher in a local school.[1]

Around 1848, she married David Hunter, with whom she had five children.[1] She was widowed after a short marriage.

Career

Around 1874, she moved to Caddo, in what was then Indiana Territory and is now Oklahoma and began working as an editor on the Oklahoma Star.[1] She also wrote for the paper under the pen name "Urania".[2] In December 1874, she married Granville McPherson, then the newspaper's chief editor.[1] Around 1876, the couple split, and sometime between 1878 and 1880, Granville moved to Texas and remarried.[1][3]

McPherson remained in Caddo, where she founded a new newspaper, the Caddo International News, making her the first woman publisher of a newspaper in Oklahoma. Two of her sons did the printing for her.[1]

In 1877, McPherson moved across the Red River to Whitesboro, Texas, where she founded a weekly newspaper, the Whitesboro Democrat.[1] It was the first newspaper in Texas published by a woman.[1] It subsequently moved to Sherman, Texas and became a daily under the name Sherman Democrat in 1879.[1][2][4]

In 1881, she became one of the first three women to join the State Press Association of Texas and was elected corresponding secretary.[1][5] She served as a delegate to the World's Press Association convention in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1886.[1]

In 1886, she was appointed postmaster of Sherman, a position she held for four years.[1]

McPherson wrote for other periodicals as well as her own newspapers, contributing to Cosmopolitan magazine and Youth's Companion, among others.[2] In 1892, she published a collection of her own verse entitled Reullura.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Willard, Frances Elizabeth. A woman of the century: Fourteen hundred-seventy biographical sketches accompanied by portraits of leading American women in all walks of life. Moulton, 1893, p. 490.
  2. 1 2 3 "McPherson, Lydia Starr". Texas State Historical Association, June 15, 2010.
  3. ↑ "Re: Granville McPherson's marriage in 1874". Ancestry.com Message Boards, Dec. 6, 2004.
  4. ↑ "Timeline of Texas Women's History". Women in Texas History. Retrieved 2023-11-16.
  5. ↑ "Lydia Starr McPherson, Journalist". Texas Highways n.d.
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