THE DENVER PRESS CLUB

About the Book

There was a time when news was folded into sheets of paper and thrown onto millions of doorsteps throughout the country. It was a time when journalists were heralded as community leaders and with the same respect as doctors and lawyers. It was a time when the titans of industry and the lowly newspaper boy learned about international events from the same printed columns of the newspaper. Among the prominent social meeting places in most cities, the press club was revered where people enjoyed dignified social-and-political discourse, face-to-face camaraderie, while maintaining the highest respect for the First Amendment. This is Denver’s story of 150 years of printers’ devils who served as the jack of all trades in print shops, the Bohemian lifestyle of the reporters who gathered the news, the ghosts of America’s printed newspapers, and a few poker-playing spirits inside the Denver Press Club.

About the Author

Alan J. Kania began his photojournalism career in the early 1960s. His junior-high school gym teacher solicited students to write sports stories for the Beverly (Massachusetts) Evening Times. Since Alan created a school newspaper as a fourth grader at the Brown School, he became the cub sports-reporter and the last printer’s devil for the community newspaper. He negotiated the $3-a-story commitment as a way of getting out of gym class. He continued writing for small-town newspapers in Massachusetts and Colorado, and expanded his love of writing to magazines, and seven previous books. Alan wrapped up his 50-year career in print journalism by being an adjunct journalism professor in Denver, a founding board member of the American chapter of the London-based International Communications Forum, and Co-Director of the Southern African Media Alliance. He serves as the third historian for the Denver Press Club.