Scripps, Edward Willis

Edward Willis Scripps, (born June 18, 1854, near Rushville, Illinois, U.S.—died March 12, 1926, at sea off Monrovia, Liberia), newspaper publisher who, after founding his first paper in 1878, organized the first major chain of newspapers in the United States and later (1907) established the United Press.

From 1872 Edward was employed by his half brother James Edmund Scripps (1835–1906) on newspapers in Detroit, Michigan. On November 2, 1878, he first published a paper of his own, the Cleveland (Ohio) Penny Press (afterward the Cleveland Press), and by 1887 he also controlled papers in St. Louis, Missouri; Detroit; and Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1894, with his half brother George H. Scripps and Milton Alexander McRae, he formed the Scripps-McRae League of Newspapers, and in 1909 he established another chain, the Scripps Coast League, comprising papers on the West Coast. Eventually he owned 34 newspapers in 15 states. Written for what he called the “95 percent” (i.e., ordinary people), his papers were low-priced, politically independent, liberal, and pro-labour. In 1922 he transferred his interests to his son Robert Paine Scripps, who with Roy W. Howard reorganized the papers into the Scripps-Howard chain.

The Newspaper Enterprise Association, the first syndicate to supply feature stories, illustrations, and cartoons to newspapers, was founded by Scripps in 1902. Five years later he combined the Scripps-McRae Press Association (established 1897) with another news service to form the United Press, which later became United Press International after a merger with the Hearst organization’s International News Service in 1958.

In 1903 Edward and his half sister Ellen Browning Scripps (1836–1932) founded the Marine Biological Station of San Diego (later called the Scripps Institution of Oceanography), and in 1926 she established Scripps College (for women) in Claremont, California.

A mercurial man, Scripps was born with the given names Edward Willis but occasionally signed his middle name “Wyllis.”