Wisconsin Labor Advocate, La Crosse,
Wis. : Geo. E. Taylor, 1886-
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“Wisconsin Labor Advocate” Newspaper & Editor, George Edwin Taylor
The second item digitized with the help of Endowment
Fund in 2002 was the only known original copy of the “Wisconsin Labor
Advocate,” a newspaper published in La Crosse in 1886-1887. La Crosse was
a hotbed of Labor political party activity in the 1880s and the “Labor
Advocate” was one of at least four La Crosse area Labor-related newspapers
from that time. Besides Murphy Library having the only original issues,
what makes the “Labor Advocate” unique was its editor and owner: George
Edwin Taylor. Taylor was an African-American, born in Arkansas in 1857. As
a black business owner, he was an anomaly in La Crosse in the 1880s. Taylor
got his start in publishing working at other La Crosse newspapers. He also
became increasingly interested in politics as reflected in his editorship of
the “Wisconsin Labor Advocate.” The last existing edition of the paper
dates from August 6, 1887 and George Edwin Taylor left La Crosse soon
afterwards. He maintained a life-long interest in politics and by 1904 had
become involved in an all African-American political party called the National
Liberty Party. Taylor accepted the nomination of that party in 1904 as its
candidate for the office of the U.S. President. In doing so, Taylor was the
first candidate of a national African-American party for the U.S.
presidency.
Charles Haas has written a very nice
article for the recently published Past, Present, &
Future newsletter of the La Crosse Co. Historical
Society about George Edwin Taylor – the first black
candidate of a “major” party in the presidential race who
had La Crosse ties. Included is a nice copy of his
full-length portrait from the Univ. of North Florida
library.
There are some nice materials about
Taylor and blacks in La Crosse on La Crosse History Unbound
http://lacrossehistory.org/nhd/politicsafrican.htm
including images of the paper Taylor published here in La
Crosse from 1886-1887 Wisconsin Labor Advocate.
As the OCR was very poor, the following students
rekeyed the issues by hand: Evelyn Weibel, Stephanie,
Carlin, Alexander Cherry, Michael Behringer, John Knepper.
