Advocate (Pittsburgh)

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Advocate was a Pittsburgh newspaper published from 1832 to 1844 in several title variants. It was the city’s second daily paper after the Gazette and aligned with anti-Jacksonian Whig ideas. It began as The Pennsylvanian Advocate, founded by James Wilson (Woodrow Wilson’s grandfather). Wilson promoted protectionism, internal improvements, a sound currency, a strong Union, and he aimed to defeat Andrew Jackson. Early issues were printed weekly from Steubenville and sent to Pittsburgh, then moved to Pittsburgh as a tri-weekly, with a press capable of printing a double-page form—the first west of the Allegheny Mountains.

The paper sparked Bank War controversy when Jacksonian opponents accused it of taking money from the U.S. Bank; a misdelivered letter containing a $580 check from Nicholas Biddle led Wilson to deny bribery accusations. About a year after founding, Wilson left; his son William Duane Wilson and Alfred W. Marks ran the paper as the Pennsylvania Advocate and Pittsburgh Daily Advertiser, the city’s second daily after the Gazette. It remained Whig in politics and absorbed the 1836 weekly Statesman (Commonwealth).

In 1837 control passed to Robert M. Riddle, who would later be a Whig mayor of Pittsburgh and editor of the Commercial Journal. In 1839 George Parkin merged his Western Emporium into the paper and joined Riddle as co-editor, becoming sole editor when Riddle left the following year. The final editor-proprietor, Judge Thomas H. Baird, took over in 1843 and sold the paper in 1844 to merge with the Gazette. The combined title became Pittsburgh Daily Gazette and Advertiser, with the word “Advocate” dropped to avoid confusion with two religious papers named Advocate. Baird noted that the two oldest papers were uniting to support Henry Clay and the American System. The exact title varied over time as editions changed.