author
William Allen White
1868–1944
Best known as the "Sage of Emporia," he turned a small-town Kansas newspaper into a national voice and became one of the most influential American journalists of his era. His writing mixed plainspoken wit, civic conviction, and a close feel for everyday life in the Midwest.
5 Audiobooks
In Our Town
by William Allen White
The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me
by William Allen White
A Certain Rich Man
by William Allen White
In the Heart of a Fool
by William Allen White
The Court of Boyville
by William Allen White
About the author
Born in Emporia, Kansas, in 1868, William Allen White became the owner and editor of the Emporia Gazette in 1895. From that small-town paper, he built a national reputation as a journalist, author, and public commentator whose opinions reached far beyond Kansas.
White was widely associated with Progressive-era politics and was known for a blend of optimism, tolerance, and practical reform-minded thinking. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his 1923 editorial "To an Anxious Friend," and he was long remembered as the "Sage of Emporia" for the way he spoke to broad American concerns in a direct, accessible style.
He also wrote books and autobiographical work, and his personal essay "Mary White," written after the death of his daughter, became especially well known. White died in Emporia in 1944, leaving behind a body of journalism that helped define the voice of small-town America in the early twentieth century.