William Cowper Brann

Born in Coles County, Illinois, in 1855, he became an American journalist, editor, lecturer, and author best known as "Brann the Iconoclast." Reliable reference sources agree that he rose to national notice through The Iconoclast, the outspoken publication he edited in Texas, where his style was admired by some readers for its wit and force and condemned by others for its bitterness.

Accounts from the Texas State Historical Association and Humanities Texas describe a restless early life and a career shaped by newspaper work in several places before he settled in Waco. There, his attacks on powerful institutions and public figures brought him both devoted supporters and determined enemies, making him one of the most controversial newspaper voices of the 1890s.

His life ended in 1898 after a deadly street shooting in Waco. Remembered as a brilliant but deeply divisive editorialist, he remains a vivid figure in Texas and American press history because of the reach of his writing, the intensity of his public battles, and the dramatic way his career was cut short.