author
William Cowper Brann
1855–1898
A fiery newspaper editor from the Gilded Age, he became famous for sharp, combative writing that won devoted readers and bitter enemies. His life and career captured the rough edge of American journalism in the 1890s.
3 Audiobooks
The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 01
by William Cowper Brann
The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 12
by William Cowper Brann
The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 10
by William Cowper Brann
About the author
Born in Coles County, Illinois, in 1855, William Cowper Brann worked a string of jobs before finding his voice in journalism. He is best remembered as the editor of The Iconoclast, a magazine whose fierce, mocking style made him widely known as “Brann the Iconoclast.”
After moving to Texas, he built a large readership by attacking public figures, institutions, and what he saw as hypocrisy. His writing was brilliant and often deeply controversial, and it stirred intense public feuds, especially in Waco, where his clashes with powerful local interests became notorious.
Brann was shot in Waco in 1898 and died at age forty-three, bringing his turbulent career to a sudden end. More than a century later, he remains a vivid and complicated figure in American press history: admired for his forceful prose, but also remembered for the bitterness and damage his rhetoric could carry.