Oswald Garrison Villard Biography (Journalist) (1872–1949)

Oswald Garrison's Short Story:Journalist. Born March 13, 1872 in Wiesbaden, Germany. The son of a wealthy railroad magnate who owned The Nation and the New York Evening Post, Villard graduated from Harvard in 1893. In 1900 he became owner, writer and editor of both publications after his father’s death. Villard’s pacifist position later adversely affected circulation and he sold the New York Evening Post in 1918, but retained The Nation, which he edited until 1932.

Villard was a founder of the American Anti-Imperialist League and a pioneer for civil rights. In 1910, he donated space in the New York Evening Post to advertise the meeting that formerly organized the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Villard served as the NAACP’s disbursing treasurer for several years.

Villard continued to champion civil liberties, civil rights, and anti-imperialism after World War I and was bitterly opposed to the U.S. entry into World War II. He broke completely with The Nation because it supported American intervention. Before his death in 1949, he had aligned himself with conservatives against the Cold War policies of Harry S. Truman.