Victor Hanson

Victor Hanson was all of 11 years old when he began his first successful publication - a children's newspaper he founded in Macon, Georgia - and he took it with him when his family moved to Columbus. Four years later, the circulation reached 2,500, and he sold his interest in the paper for $2,000. Not bad for a 15 year old in 1891.

Hanson became one of the most successful and distinguished newspaper publishers ever in Alabama. He achieved his success in the great American tradition of starting at the bottom and working his way up. He reported stories, wrote editorials, and, as a young and imaginative circulation department employee of the Montgomery Advertiser, increased that newspaper's financial returns fivefold in a few short years.

In 1909, he moved to Birmingham and invested his savings in a third interest of The Birmingham News. Within a year he was publisher and president; in nine years the circulation increased from 18,000 to 60,000.

In 1920, the News acquired the Ledger, followed by the Age-Herald. Hanson also owned the Advertiser. Although he no longer wrote articles, his papers reflected his passion for freedom and good government. He believed strongly that a paper had to be independent economically to be independent editorially, and this enabled Pulitzer Prize-winning editor Grover Hall to carry out his historic fight with the Ku Klux Klan in the Montgomery Advertiser.

A champion of freedom, Hanson was also committed to improving the education of Alabamians. As a friend of young people, he financed oratorical contests for high-school students. His interest in education became philanthropy. There are at least three Hanson halls on Alabama campuses, and numerous buildings were constructed at other institutions because of his generous support.

Today, The Birmingham News stands proudly as one of the South's outstanding newspapers, a testament to Victor Hanson's acumen as a businessman and journalist.