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William Allen White

From This Might Be A Wiki
William Allen White
William Allen White
A 1948 US postage stamp of William Allen White.
A 1948 US postage stamp of William Allen White.

William Allen White is the jolly, smiling face so familiar to fans of They Might Be Giants. In 1996, one hundred years after Mr. White's career-making editorial "What's The Matter With Kansas" was published, a group of 15 historians came to consensus that he was the most influential person in all of Kansas history. Giant cardboard cutouts of Mr. White can be seen at TMBG concerts, TV performances and music videos. His face is also displayed prominently in the logo of this very wiki, as seen at the bottom of your browser.

Quotes:

"Exhaustive research reveals that he's William Allen White, known in his day as 'America's most famous small-town newspaperman.' Editor and Publisher of the Emporia (Kansas) Gazette from the 1890's until the 1940's. White's editorials were widely reprinted. He was best known for an 1896 editorial attacking perennial Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan and a tribute he wrote for his daughter Mary, who was killed in a horseback riding accident at age 17 (some of you may remember a made-for-TV movie about her life which aired about 10 or 15 years ago.) Although he was a life-long Republican, White was nevertheless a strong supporter of Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations and Franklin Delano Roosevelt's social and economic reforms. White died in Emporia on January 29, 1944." -- TMBG Information Bulletin #1, Winter 1991
"He's no one famous," says Linnell, "just someone from the encyclopedia." -- Reflex, June/July 1988
"'That guy' probably has a family or an estate or something and we don't want to alert them to the fact that we've been using his likeness in case they'd want to sue us." -- John Linnell, tmbg.com Q & A
"He is William Allen White, beloved Kansan, small-town newspaperman and prominent progressive. His editorials in the Emporia Gazette won him the Pulitzer Prize. And a run for governor centered on a single issue: ridding the state of the KKK." -- Vance DeGeneres in an Easter Egg on Gigantic.

[edit] Resources

  • Download your copy of the William Allen White Windows Icon. (Click here). If your browser can display a favicon.ico, you will see a miniature version of this icon on our site.
  • Be sure to visit the William Allen White Store. This is probably the only place in the world where you can buy a William Allen White coffee mug or William Allen White thong underwear.
  • Wikipedia article on William Allen White.
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