Julius Chambers

Life and works

Julius Chambers was born in Bellefontaine, Ohio in 1850, the son of Joseph and Sarabella (née Walker) Chambers. When he was only eleven years old, he began working as a printer's devil in his uncles' newspaper office. He first attended Ohio Wesleyan University, and later, Cornell University, from which he graduated in 1870. At Cornell, he was a co-founder in 1869 of the Irving Literary Society. Around 1880, while working as a journalist he spent some time reading law in Philadelphia with Benjamin H. Brewster, who became U.S. Attorney General in December 1881, and studying at Columbia College Law School in New York City.

New York Tribune

After graduating from Cornell, he became a reporter on the New York Tribune until 1873.

Geographic discovery

While on sick leave on June 4, 1872, Chambers discovered Elk Lake adjoining Lake Itasca in Clearwater County, Minnesota, in the Lake District of Northwestern Minnesota. He declared it to be the ultimate origin of the Mississippi River. For this discovery, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. This led to a series of newspaper articles and the book The Mississippi River and Its Wonderful Valley (1910).

Investigative journalism

Later in 1872, he returned to work and undertook a journalistic investigation of Bloomingdale Asylum, having himself committed with the help of some of his friends and the city editor. His intent was to obtain information about alleged abuse of inmates. After ten days, his collaborators on the project had him released. When articles and accounts of the experience were published in the Tribune, it led to the release of twelve patients who were not mentally ill, a reorganization of the staff and administration of the institution and, eventually, to a change in the lunacy laws. This later led to the publication of the book A Mad World and Its People (1876). From this time onward, Chambers was frequently invited to speak on the rights of the mentally ill and the need for proper facilities for their accommodation, care and treatment.

New York Herald

In 1873, he joined the staff of the New York Herald and in his fifteen years at the newspaper occupied nearly every one of its editorial desks. In 1887, his editor-in-chief sent him to Paris to launch the Paris Herald.

New York World

In 1889, Chambers became the managing editor of the New York World on the invitation of Joseph Pulitzer, where he remained until 1891.

In 1890, Pulitzer, Chambers, et al. were indicted for posthumous criminal libel against Alexander T. Stewart for accusing him of "a dark and secret crime", as the man who "invited guests to meet his mistresses at his table", and as "a pirate of the dry goods ocean." The charges were dismissed by the court. This sort of criminal action was common at the time and both Pulitzer and Chambers were indicted in a number of cases, in some of which they were acquitted, in others convicted.

Chambers also wrote a column for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, from 1904 onwards, called "Walks and Talks" and he continued to write it for the rest of his life.

He continued his travel writing and lectured in journalism at Cornell University from 1903 to 1904, and at New York University in 1910.

In addition to his works of fiction, he published over a hundred short stories and had two plays produced in New York, both comedies. His final book, the posthumously published News Hunting on Three Continents (1921), has been generally accepted as an autobiographical account of his career even though many of the chapters are in fact lightly revised versions of fictional stories he wrote over the years.

Chambers was married twice. For years he was a member of the Lotos Club, New York.