Scripps, Edward Wyllis (1854-1926), was a famous American journalist. Scripps started the first newspaper chain and founded the United Press Associations, now United Press International. He controlled a large number of newspapers and newspaper services.
Scripps was born on a farm near Rushville, Illinois on June 18, 1854. At the age of 18, he started to work on the Detroit Tribune as an office boy. In 1878, he began a newspaper of his own, the Cleveland Penny Press. This paper was the first of a chain that included papers from the Midwest to the Pacific Coast. Scripps and his brothers bought the St. Louis Evening Chronicle in 1880. In 1882, they purchased the Cincinnati Penny Post, which they later renamed the Cincinnati Post.
Scripps’s health failed in 1917, and he gave control of his newspaper holdings to his son, Robert P. Scripps. In 1922, the chain became known as the Scripps-Howard Newspapers, Inc. Edward Scripps died on March 12, 1926.
