Frederick Palmer (journalist)
Frederick Palmer (January 29, 1873 - September 2, 1958) was an American journalist and writer.
Contents
Biography
Born in Pleasantville, Pennsylvania, Palmer attended Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania.[1]
The New York Press hired Palmer in 1895 as its London correspondent; and this opportunity evolved into a long career.[1]
War correspondent
Palmer's fifty years as a war correspondent began when he was sent to cover the Greco-Turkish War of 1897 for the New York World and for Collier's Weekly. He then covered the gold rush in northwestern Canada. The Philippine–American War (1899–1902) provided an opportunity for him to cross the Pacific bound for Manila.[1]
In 1900, Palmer went to China to cover the Boxer Rebellion (1900); and then he was sent to cover the Boer War (1899–1902) in South Africa.[1]
Then the prospect of military conflict in Manchuria brought him back to China to cover the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) for the New York Globe..[2]
The New York Times sent Palmer to cover the Balkan War in 1912.[1]
In 1914, Palmer was arrested in Mexico City while covering the Tampico Affair (1914) and the United States occupation of Veracruz for Everybody's Magazine.[1]
World War I
General John Pershing persuaded him to take on the task of press accreditation for the American Expeditionary Force (AEF). In this period, he was accorded the rank of Colonel.[1] Palmer subsequently became the first war correspondent to win the U.S. Army's Distinguished Service Medal.
Between World War I and World War II, Palmer wrote thirty-one books, including Our Greatest Battle, based on his World War I experiences. In his books, he provided an analysis of the future impact of weapons and strategies he had seen, and soon after the end of World War I predicted that a second world war was on the horizon. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from Princeton University in 1935.
Partial listing of works
- 1897 -- Going to War in Greece[1]
- 1898 -- In the Klondyke [3]
- 1901 -- The Ways of the Service[1]
- 1904 -- With Kuroki in Manchuria[1]
- 1906—Lucy Of The Stars—novel.
- 1910—The Big Fellow—novel.
- 1910—Danbury Rodd, Aviator—novel.
- 1910—The Vagabond—novel.
- 1912—Over the Pass—a Western novel.
- 1914—The Last Shot—a novel about a fictional major European war, from the point of view of a small set of soldiers and civilians. Written before the start of World War I.
- 1916 -- My Year of the War[1]—Palmer's account of his experiences as a journalist, starting the day World War I was declared.
- 1917 -- My Second Year of the War[1]—Palmer's account of his second year as a World War I war correspondent
- 1919—Our Greatest Battle (the Meuse-Argonne)
- 1921—The Folly of Nations—Tracing the causes of wars in general.
- 1933—With My Own Eyes—autobiography.
Notes
References
- Haverstock, Nathan A. (1996). Fifty Years at the Front: The Life of War Correspondent Frederick Palmer. Washington, D.C.: Brassey's. ISBN 978-1-57488-040-3; OCLC 33041795
- Roth, Mitchel P. and James Stuart Olson. (1997). Historical Dictionary of War Journalism. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-29171-5
External links
- New General Catalog of Old Books and Authors
- Works by Frederick Palmer at Project Gutenberg
- Lua error in Module:Internet_Archive at line 573: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
- Pages with broken file links
- Articles with Internet Archive links
- 1873 births
- 1958 deaths
- 20th-century American novelists
- American memoirists
- American male novelists
- American autobiographers
- American war correspondents
- War correspondents of the Russo-Japanese War
- American people of World War I
- Recipients of the Distinguished Service Medal (United States)
