Jonathan W. Daniels

Jonathan Worth Daniels (April 26, 1902 – November 6, 1981) was an American writer, editor, and White House Press Secretary. He was a founding member of the Peabody Awards Board of Jurors, serving from 1940 until 1950. For most of his life, he worked at The News & Observer, and later founded The Island Packet.

Education

Jonathan Worth Daniels was the son of Josephus Daniels and Addie Worth Bagley Daniels. He attended Centennial School in Raleigh from 1908 to 1913. When his father became United States Secretary of the Navy in 1913, the family moved to Washington, D.C., where he studied at the John Eaton School from 1913 to 1915, and St. Albans School from 1915 to 1918. Daniels attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and graduated in 1921 with a B.A. He continued at UNC for graduate school, earning an M.A. in English in 1921. As a student in Chapel Hill, he edited The Daily Tar Heel and participated in the Carolina Playmakers. Years later, his daughter Lucy Daniels would also receive a Guggenheim for fiction, in 1957.

White House Press Secretary After World War II began, Daniels went into government service, first as assistant director of the Office of Civilian Defense and later as one of six administrative assistants for President Franklin D. Roosevelt (who had worked under Josephus Daniels during World War I). In March 1945, less than one month before his death, Roosevelt named Daniels his press secretary, and he continued in the position temporarily under President Harry S. Truman. Daniels' 47-day term serving as White House Press Secretary was the shortest of any White House Press Secretary until that of Jerald terHorst, who was Gerald Ford's first Press Secretary for 31 days.

Later life Daniels returned to The News & Observer in 1947 and became its editor in 1948, upon the death of his father. He died in 1981.

Books Clash of Angels New York: Brewer and Warren (1930) The Devil's Backbone: The Story of the Natchez Trace New York: McGraw-Hill (1962) (Also published in later editions) The End of Innocence Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. (1954) (Also published in later editions) Frontier on the Potomac New York: Macmillan (1946) (Also published in a later edition) The Gentlemanly Serpent and Other Columns from a Newspaperman in Paradise: From the Pages of the Hilton Head Island Packet, 1970-73 Columbia: University of South Carolina Press (1974) The Man of Independence Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. (1950) (Also published in a later editions) Mosby: Gray Ghost of the Confederacy Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. (1959) Ordeal of Ambition: Jefferson, Hamilton, Burr Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday (1970) Prince of Carpetbaggers Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. (1958) The Randolphs of Virginia Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday (1972) Robert E. Lee Boston: Houghton, Mifflin (1960) A Southerner Discovers New England New York: Macmillan (1940) A Southerner Discovers the South New York: Macmillan, (1938) (Also published in a later edition) Stonewall Jackson New York: Random House (1959) Tar Heels: A Portrait of North Carolina New York: Dodd, Mead (1941) (Also published in a later edition) They Will Be Heard: America's Crusading Newspaper Editors New York: McGraw-Hill (1965) The Times Between the Wars: Armistice to Pearl Harbor Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday (1966) (Also published in a later edition) Washington Quadrille: The Dance beside the Documents Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday (1968) White House Witness, 1942-1945 Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday (1975)