William Shreve Bailey

William Shreve Bailey (c. 1806–1886) was an American mechanic and printer born in Centerville, Ohio and who moved to Newport, Kentucky, notable for his abolitionist publications, and who received widespread support from the abolitionist movement when financially strained due effects of his work.

[1][2] Bailey was by trade a cotton machinist and steam engine builder and had established a machine shop in Newport.

His religious disposition led him to abolitionism, and he contributed articles to the Newport News before buying the publication at the urging of its current owner, who felt himself unable to cope with harassment arising out of printing an abolitionist message in a slave-owning state.

[2] Bailey published a number of other newspapers, including the Kentucky Weekly News (1851–1858) and The Free South (1858–1866).

He received financial support from anti-slavery campaigners in the US and the UK, and was sponsored to make an abolitionist speaking tour in 1860.