David Ross Locke

Born in New York in 1833, David Ross Locke became a newspaper writer and editor whose work reached a huge audience in the United States. He is most closely associated with the comic persona Petroleum V. Nasby, a fictional letter writer whose exaggerated opinions let Locke mock Copperhead politics, racism, and public hypocrisy.

Locke’s Nasby sketches were especially influential during the Civil War era and brought him national fame. His writing mixed broad humor with pointed political criticism, showing how satire could be both entertaining and deeply engaged with the issues of the day.

He continued working in journalism for decades and spent much of his later career in Ohio, including at the Toledo Blade. Locke died in 1888, but his work remains an important example of how American newspaper humor shaped public debate in the 19th century.