Alfred O. Andersson

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For those of a similar name, see Alfred Anderson (disambiguation).

Alfred Oscar Andersson (1874–1950) was the publisher of the

Dallas, Texas.[1]

Growing up and career

Andersson was born in

San Antonio, Texas, in 1931 at age seventy-nine.[2] Lampe died in Kansas City
.

Andersson's career in newspapers began during his teenage years when he worked at odd jobs around the shop where his stepfather published a German-language newspaper. He wrote and edited campus publications while a student at

Chicago, Illinois
.

In 1898 Andersson reported on the

United Press, which then appointed him manager of the UP's Kansas City bureau. In 1906 he scouted Texas for a suitable location to start a newspaper for Scripps-McRae. According to newspaper lore, he stopped at a downtown Dallas drugstore, noticed it sold fine cigars, and concluded "if those are the cigars the men here favor, this must be a good town." As he contemplated starting a paper in Dallas he learned that another man was in town with the same idea and likewise with Scripps-McRae's tentative promise to back it. Confronting Col. Milton A. McRae
, he was told that Scripps-McRae's support would go to the man who got a paper on the street first; Andersson then hastily threw together the four-page first issue of the Dallas Dispatch, deployed boys to sell the paper on the street, and the Dispatch became the Scripps paper in Dallas.

In 1911, he inaugurated the

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
.

In 1919, Andersson moved to

A. H. Belo Corporation, publisher of The Dallas Morning News) to create the afternoon Dallas Dispatch-Journal, and induced the reluctant Andersson to become its publisher. Andersson finally retired in December 1938.[8]

Andersson was tall and spare and had a reserved manner and patrician features. He was described as "essentially a kind man, although his was not the heartiness associated with the back-slapper." His newspapers tended to be crusading and somewhat sensational, often publishing several editions daily.

Family

Andersson, on June 18, 1900, in Chicago, married Dorothy Winnifred Smart (maiden; 1876–1911). Two years later, on June 13, 1913, in Cincinnati, he married Ruth Holmes Harper (1890–1974), whose father, Jacob Chandler Harper (1858–1939),[9] was general counsel for the Scripps-McRae newspapers.

Death

Suffering from gradual circulatory failure and failure to completely recover from bronchial pneumonia, Andersson was stricken on a cruise and returned to the

La Jolla, California, home of his wife's deceased parents, which the Anderssons had been using as a summer home and where he died on May 11, 1950, at age seventy-five. He had three children, one of whom, a son, was editor of the Memphis Press-Scimitar.[10][5]

Notes and references

Notes

  1. ^ Dallas Morning News, September 18, 1906, p. 4, col. 5.
  2. ^ Dallas Morning News, January 31, 1931, p. 2.
  3. ^ Scripps History (archived) n.d.
  4. ^ Houston Press.
  5. ^ a b Frank, Ed n.d.
  6. ^ Dallas Morning News, March 4, 1937, p. I-2.
  7. ^ Crain, William H. n.d.
  8. ^ Dallas Morning News, December 25, 1938, p. 1, sec. 4.
  9. ^ Dallas Morning News, June 1, 1939, p. 4.
  10. ^ Dallas Morning News, May 12, 1950, p. 1, sec. 3.

References

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