At about the age of 16, while working at the post office, he began to sign his name as "Joseph E. Atkinson" even though he had been given no middle name at birth.

[3] Joseph E. Atkinson married in Toronto on April 18, 1892, to Elmina Ella Susannah Elliott of Oakville, Ontario.

[5] In Henry James Morgan's Types of Canadian Women, he describes "Mrs. Atkinson contrives without loss of interest to give dignity to woman's work in journalism.

While he was considering the offer, in December 1899,[6] Atkinson was asked by a group of supporters of Wilfrid Laurier, the Liberal prime minister of Canada, if he would become publisher of the Toronto Evening Star.

The group included Senator George Cox, William Mulock, Peter Charles Larkin and Timothy Eaton.

Canadian journalist and historian Mark Bourrie has described Atkinson as a "strange mixture of social justice advocate and soul-crushing capitalist" and "a scolding, arch-capitalist Marxist who ran the Toronto Star as a cash machine for social justice movements.

The article included quotes from Atkinson's will expressing his desire that ownership of the papers "shall not fall into private hands."

It stipulated that the seven trustees of the Foundation and their successors would also operate the Star and Star Weekly:This should accomplish two things: (1) The publication of the papers will be conducted for the benefit of the public in the full and frank dissemination of news and opinions, with the profit motive, while still important, subsidiary to what I consider to be the chief functions of a metropolitan newspaper; (2) The profits from the newspapers will be used for the promotion and maintenance of social, scientific and economic reforms which are charitable in nature...It is my desire that the Trustees shall have the widest possible freedom possible in the decisions which they make in the operation of the newspapers and the charitable causes which they promote and maintain.