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{{Short description|American diplomat and newspaper editor (1862–1948)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=September 2021}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name                = Josephus Daniels
| image               = Josephus Daniels 1.jpg
| caption             = Daniels {{circa|1920}}
| office              = 10th [[United States Ambassador to Mexico]]
| president           = [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]]
| term_start          = April 24, 1933
| term_end            = November 9, 1941
| predecessor         = [[J. Reuben Clark]]
| successor           = [[George S. Messersmith]]
| office1             = 41st [[United States Secretary of the Navy]]
| president1          = [[Woodrow Wilson]]
| deputy1             = [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]]<br>[[Gordon Woodbury]]
| term_start1         = March 5, 1913
| term_end1           = March 4, 1921
| predecessor1        = [[George von Lengerke Meyer|George Meyer]]
| successor1          = [[Edwin Denby (politician)|Edwin Denby]]
| birth_date          = {{birth date|1862|5|18}}
| birth_place         = [[Washington, North Carolina]], [[Confederate States of America]]
| death_date          = {{death date and age|1948|1|15|1862|5|18}}
| death_place         = [[Raleigh, North Carolina]], U.S.
| party               = [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]]
| spouse              = {{marriage|[[Addie Worth Bagley Daniels|Addie Worth Bagley]]|1888|1943|end=died}}
| children            = 4, including [[Jonathan W. Daniels|Jonathan]]
| education           = [[Duke University]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|BA]])<br>[[University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill|University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill]] ([[Bachelor of Laws|LLB]])
}}
'''Josephus Daniels''' (May 18, 1862 &ndash; January 15, 1948) was a newspaper editor, [[Secretary of the Navy]] under President [[Woodrow Wilson]], and [[U.S. Ambassador to Mexico]] under President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]].

He managed ''[[The News & Observer]]'' in [[Raleigh, North Carolina|Raleigh]], at the time [[North Carolina]]'s largest circulation newspaper, from the 1890s until his death. Daniels was a vehement [[white supremacist]] and [[Racial segregation in the United States|segregationist]]; he and his newspaper "championed the white supremacy cause in frequent news reports, vigorously worded editorials, provocative letters, and vicious front page cartoons that called attention to what the newspaper called the horrors of 'negro rule.'"<ref name=Campbell>{{cite journal|last=Campbell|first=W. Joseph|year=1999|title='One of the Fine Figures of American Journalism': A Closer Look at Josephus Daniels of the Raleigh 'News and Observer'|journal=[[American Journalism]]|volume=16|number=4|doi=10.1080/08821127.1999.10739206}}</ref>

Along with [[Charles Brantley Aycock]] and [[Furnifold McLendel Simmons]], he was a leading perpetrator of the [[Wilmington insurrection of 1898]], in which white mobs overthrew the legitimately elected biracial government in Wilmington, expelled black and white political leaders from the city, destroyed the property and businesses of black citizens built up since the American Civil War, and killed between 60 and 300 black people. He was highly influential in the state legislature's passage in 1900 of a suffrage amendment that effectively [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disenfranchised most blacks]] in the state, excluding them from the political system for decades until the late 20th century.

A [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrat]],<ref name="Dawley2013">{{cite book|author=Alan Dawley|title=Changing the World: American Progressives in War and Revolution: American Progressives in War and Revolution|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y3UeAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA121|date=November 28, 2013|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-1-4008-5059-4|pages=121–}}</ref> he had been a leading [[Progressive Era|progressive]] in the early 20th century, supporting public schools and public works, and calling for more regulation of trusts and railroads. He supported [[prohibition]] and [[women's suffrage]], and used his newspapers to support the regular Democratic Party ticket.

He was appointed by President [[Woodrow Wilson]] to serve as [[Secretary of the Navy]] during [[World War I]]. He became a close friend and supporter of [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]], then the Assistant Secretary of the Navy.  As Secretary of the Navy, Daniels handled policy and formalities in World War I while his top aide, Roosevelt, handled the major wartime decisions.

After Roosevelt was elected President of the United States, he appointed Daniels as his [[U.S. Ambassador to Mexico]], serving from 1933 to 1941. Daniels worked to repair relations with the government that had been damaged during the [[United States involvement in the Mexican Revolution|Mexican Revolution]] as part of Roosevelt's "[[Good Neighbor Policy]]". In accordance with that policy Daniels and the Roosevelt Administration took a less adversarial position toward the government's 1938 expropriation of American and other foreign oil holdings than other foreign governments had.

His son, [[Jonathan W. Daniels|Jonathan]], was named a special assistant to Roosevelt in 1941. At that time, Daniels resigned his ambassadorial post in Mexico to return to North Carolina, where he resumed the editor's post at ''The News & Observer'', and continued his outspoken editorial style.

He died in 1948 after completing his memoirs.

==Early life and career==
Josephus Daniels was born in 1862 to Josephus Daniels, a shipbuilder and his wife Mary Seabrook Daniels in [[Washington, North Carolina]], located on the [[Pamlico River]] in Beaufort County. The state had seceded from the Union in 1861. Before the boy was 3, his father was killed because of his well-known Union sympathies by a Confederate sharpshooter as he was attempting to leave with Federal forces evacuating Washington, N.C. during the [[American Civil War|Civil War]]. Young Daniels moved with his widowed mother and two siblings to [[Wilson, North Carolina]] where she supported the family as a postal worker. He was educated at Wilson Collegiate Institute and at Trinity College (now [[Duke University]]).

Daniels edited and eventually purchased a local newspaper, the ''Wilson Advance''.  Within a few years, he became part owner, along with his brother Charles, of the ''Kinston Free Press'' and the ''Rocky Mount Reporter''.<ref>{{cite book|author=Kenneth Zogry|title= "Josephus Daniels" in Howard E. Covington and Marion A. Ellis, eds. ''North Carolina Century: Tar Heels Who Made a Difference, 1900-2000''|year=2002|page=302}}</ref>  He studied law at the University of North Carolina (today the [[University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill]]) and was admitted to the bar in 1885, but did not practice law.

After becoming increasingly involved in the [[North Carolina Democratic Party]] and taking over the weekly paper ''Daily State Chronicle'', Daniels served as North Carolina's state printer from 1887 to 1893. He was appointed as chief clerk of the [[United States Department of the Interior|U.S. Department of the Interior]] under [[Grover Cleveland]] in 1893–95.<ref>{{cite EB1922|wstitle=Daniels, Josephus}}</ref>

==''The News & Observer''==
In 1894, with the financial assistance of industrialist [[Julian Carr (industrialist)|Julian S. Carr]], also a white supremacist, Daniels acquired a controlling interest in [[Raleigh, North Carolina|Raleigh]]'s ''[[News & Observer]]'', and left his federal position. Under his leadership, the paper was a strong advocate for the Democratic Party, which at the time was struggling to maintain its power in the state against a fusion of the [[United States Republican Party|Republicans]] and [[United States Populist Party|Populists]].<ref>Zogry, "Josephus Daniels," p. 303.</ref>

According to Daniels in his autobiography, "The ''News & Observer'' was relied upon to carry the Democratic message and to be the militant voice of White Supremacy, and it did not fail in what was expected."<ref name=Campbell/> Daniels printed numerous articles intended to stoke fears of black men as rapists of white women. A lone white woman noticing a black man in her vicinity would be written up in the paper as a narrowly avoided rape. Daniels also argued that achieving political office emboldened black men to commit more outrages against white women.

He hired cartoonist Norman E. Jennett to spread his message among the 25% of white voters who were illiterate. Daniels admitted later that actual assaults committed by black men on white women were very few in number. However his newspaper coverage had the desired effect of winning Populists over to the Democratic Party. Newspapers were sold at cost to the Democratic Party, which distributed them to white voters.<ref>Zucchino, pp. 76-82</ref>

According to historian [[Helen Edmonds]], the paper "led in a campaign of prejudice, bitterness, vilification, misrepresentation, and exaggeration to influence the emotions of the whites against the Negro."<ref name=Report/> The result was the only successful ''[[coup d'état]]'' in American history, the overthrow of an elected government by force in the [[Wilmington insurrection of 1898]]. In the findings of the Wilmington Race Riot Commission, Daniels is the only name mentioned as a cause of the insurrection.<ref name=Report>{{cite web|title=1898 Wilmington race riot report|publisher=Research Branch, Office of Archives and History, [[North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources]]|author=1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission|year=2006|url=http://digital.ncdcr.gov/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p249901coll22/id/5842/show/5338 |pages=1, 61}}</ref> Later in life, while discussing his success, "Daniels admitted that the paper was occasionally excessive in its bias toward Democrats and that stories were not fully researched before publication and probably could not be 'sustained in a court of justice.'"<ref name=Report/>

Daniels never apologized for using the newspaper to encourage white supremacist violence in 1898. In his memoir, he spoke positively about the actions of [[Red Shirts (United States)|Red Shirts]] and  how his white supremacy campaign had crushed "Negro domination". ''The News & Observer'' remained under the control of Daniels's family until 1995, when it was sold to [[The McClatchy Company]]. In 2006 the newspaper published an editorial apologizing for its role in the [[Wilmington insurrection of 1898]] and consequent massacre.<ref>Zucchino, pp. 343-344</ref>

The [[white supremacy]] campaign led to Democratic victories in 1898 and 1900. Having regained control of the state legislature, the Democrats passed a suffrage amendment raising barriers to voter registration, which [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disenfranchised most African Americans]] in the state. The political exclusion was maintained into the late 1960s.

Daniels also supported a number of progressive causes, such as public education and anti-child-labor laws.<ref name="NCpedia">{{cite book|url=http://ncpedia.org/biography/daniels-josephus|title=NCPedia|contribution=Josephus Daniels|first=Steven|last=Case|year=2009}}</ref>{{failed verification|date=January 2019}}

==Secretary of the Navy==
Daniels supported native Southerner [[Woodrow Wilson]] in the 1912 presidential election. After Wilson's victory, he was appointed as [[Secretary of the Navy]].<ref name="Dawley2013"/>

[[Image:Usnavyaw.jpg|thumb|Letter from Daniels confirming that the Navy Cross was conferred on [[Ernesto Burzagli]] in the name of the President of the United States in 1919. Captain Burzagli was an officer in the Royal Italian Navy.]] 
Secretary Daniels held the post from 1913 to 1921, throughout the Wilson administration, overseeing the Navy during [[World War I]]. [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]], a future U.S. president, served as his [[Assistant Secretary of the Navy]].<ref>Haugen, Brenda. (2006). [https://books.google.com/books?id=pc2bfaMZWC0C&dq=josephus+daniels&pg=PA42  ''Franklin Delano Roosevelt,'' p. 42.]</ref>

[[Image:Denby-Daniels.jpg|thumb|Daniels (right) shaking hands with his successor as Secretary of the Navy, [[Edwin C. Denby|Edwin Denby]].]]

As [[Secretary of the Navy]], he banned the consumption of alcohol aboard U.S. naval vessels<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.usni.org/2014/07/01/hundred-years-dry-u-s-navys-end-alcohol-sea|title=A Hundred Years Dry: The U.S. Navy's End of Alcohol at Sea|author=US Naval Institute Staff|date=July 1, 2014|newspaper=[[United States Naval Institute#USNI News|USNI News]]}}</ref> in [https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/g/general-orders/general-order-no-99-prohibition-in-the-navy.html General Order 99] of June 1, 1914. After the end of [[Prohibition in the United States|Prohibition]] in 1933, the Navy continued to ban alcohol on board ship but allowed limited access to [[beer]] for sailors with 45 days or more of service on their records. Limited access to harder alcoholic beverages by officers to be distributed at their discretion was subsequently maintained for use on shore during official leave from onboard duty.<ref>"A Hundred Years Dry: The U.S. Navy's End of Alcohol at Sea," Staff of the United States Naval Institute, ''USNI News'', internet website [https://news.usni.org/2014/07/01/hundred-years-dry-u-s-navys-end-alcohol-sea], accessed October 15, 2018.</ref>

In 1917, Secretary Daniels determined that no prostitution would be permitted within a five-mile radius of naval installations. In [[New Orleans]] this World War I directive resulted in the shutting down of brothels in [[Storyville, New Orleans|Storyville]]. It had long-lasting consequences for servicemen and others during subsequent decades.<!-- meaning? --><ref>Stanonis, Anthony. (1997). [http://chn.loyno.edu/history/journal/1996-7/Stanonis.html  "An Old House in the Quarter: Vice in the Vieux Carré of the 1930s."] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070220165108/http://chn.loyno.edu/history/journal/1996-7/Stanonis.html |date=February 20, 2007 }} [[Loyola University New Orleans]] History Writing Award.</ref>

During World War I, Daniels created the [[Naval Consulting Board]] to encourage inventions that would be helpful to the Navy. Daniels asked [[Thomas Edison]] to chair the board, as the Secretary was worried that the US was unprepared for the new conditions of warfare and needed new technology.<ref>Scott, Lloyd N. (2002). [https://archive.org/details/cu31924030753713 <!-- quote=Naval Consulting Board of the United States. -->  ''Naval Consulting Board of the United States,'' pp. 286-288].</ref> Additionally, Daniels was the first Secretary of the Navy to sponsor naval aviation. He established the first [[Naval Air Station Pensacola|naval air station at the Pensacola Navy Yard]], claiming "aircraft must form a large part of our naval force for offensive and defensive operations".<ref>Daniel J. Carrison, ''The United States Navy'' (Praeger, 1968), p. 117.</ref>

Daniels believed in government ownership of armor-plate factories, and of telephones and telegraphs. At the end of the First World War, he made a serious attempt to have the Navy permanently control all radio transmitters in the United States. If he had succeeded [[amateur radio]] would have ended, and it is likely that [[radio broadcasting]] would have been substantially delayed.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.docstoc.com/docs/11595271/The-History-of-Ham-Radio|title=The History of Ham Radio|work=Docstoc.com}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiug.30112064674325;view=1up;seq=345|title=Howeth: Chapter XXVII|date=1963|publisher=For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U. S. Govt. Print. Off.}}</ref>

The [[Newport Sex Scandal]] erupted due to a Navy sting operation, overseen by Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt, that was conducted in 1919. Begun as an attempt to clean up what was seen as "immoral conditions" at [[Naval Station Newport]], it expanded to investigations of the civilian population in Newport. It resulted in the arrests for [[homosexual]] activity of some 17 sailors and a prominent [[Episcopal Church (United States)|Episcopal]] Navy chaplain, with imprisonment imposed for some. When the tactics used in the sting operation became known, it attracted national news coverage. Congress undertook an investigation, resulting in both Secretary Daniels and Roosevelt being rebuked by a Congressional committee. The report called FDR's behavior "reprehensible," and said that the actions "violated the code of the American citizen and ignored the rights of every American boy who enlisted in the Navy to fight for his country."<ref>{{Citation | newspaper = The New York Times | url= https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9E0DE3DB1731EF33A25753C2A9619C946095D6CF | title = Lay Navy Scandal to FD Roosevelt | date = July 20, 1921 }}.</ref><ref>{{Citation | newspaper = The Providence Journal | url = http://www.projo.com/extra/2008/gay_history/popups/journal_frontpage.html | title = Gay history | at = Front page | date = July 20, 1921 | publisher = Projo | access-date = February 20, 2018}}.</ref>

Daniels published ''The Navy and the Nation'' (1919), which was primarily a collection of war addresses he had made as Secretary of the Navy.

After leaving government service in 1921, Daniels resumed the editorship of ''The News & Observer''. He strongly supported Democrat [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] for president in 1932.

==Ambassador to Mexico==
President Roosevelt appointed Daniels as [[United States Ambassador to Mexico]], a post he held from 1933 to 1941. Roosevelt expected Daniels to help carry out his "Good Neighbor Policy" in Latin America and, more particularly, to repair the damage to relations between the U.S. and Mexico caused by the U.S. invasion of Mexico during its civil war.

It was a remarkable choice as Daniels was not only an outspoken white supremacist, but had overseen an invasion of the port of [[Veracruz (city)|Veracruz]] attempting to sabotage [[Victoriano Huerta]] during his time as head of the Navy. A group of Mexicans who saw this invasion as [[Yankee imperialism|Yankee imperial]] intervention<ref name=":0" /> stoned the U.S. Embassy in protest of his appointment.<ref>Dent, David W. (1995). [https://books.google.com/books?id=vCqJPsfomCcC&dq=josephus+daniels&pg=PA313  ''U.S.-Latin American Policymaking: A Reference Handbook,'' p. 313.]</ref>

===Relations with the Cárdenas Administration===
Daniels's speeches and policies while serving as Ambassador to Mexico are believed to have improved U.S.-Mexican relations. He praised a proposed Mexican plan for universal popular education and, in a speech to U.S. consular officials, advised them to refrain from interfering too much in the affairs of other nations.<ref>Lee A. Craig, ''Josephus Daniels: His Life and Times'' (2013) pp 399-410</ref>

Daniels also saw the reforms of President [[Lázaro Cárdenas]] as analogous to Roosevelt's New Deal. He particularly supported Cardenas's expropriation of large landowners, over the objections of the State Department. Historian Tore Olsson has argued that Daniels's support of Cardenas's agrarian reform "contributed most significantly to the success" of the program and that Daniels wielded "astounding power over the future of agrarian reform".<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Olsson |first=Tore C. |title=Agrarian crossings: reformers and the remaking of the US and Mexican countryside |date=2017 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-16520-2 |series=America in the world |location=Princeton}}</ref> This support also translated into support for the [[Farm Security Administration]] back home.{{sfn|Olsson|2017|pp=86–96}} Daniels, along with John A. Ferrell, was also instrumental in obtaining support for the Rockefeller Foundation's Mexican Agriculture Program, which influenced the later [[Green Revolution]].{{sfn|Olsson|2017|pp=127-128}}

Daniels also encouraged the Roosevelt Administration to take a more conciliatory attitude toward the Cárdenas administration's expropriation of foreign oil holdings, which he believed could not be reversed, and to resist the pressure from U.S. oil companies seeking the imposition of sanctions on Mexico by the U.S. government.

====Anti-Catholicism====
American Catholics criticized Daniels for failing to oppose the continuing attacks on the Catholic Church by the Mexican government following the [[Cristero War]]. Daniels was a staunch Methodist, and worked with Catholics in the U.S., but had little sympathy for the [[Catholic Church in Mexico|Church in Mexico]].{{citation needed|date=February 2021}} He believed that it represented the landed aristocracy, which stood opposed to his version of liberalism. <!--Hide - this is unsourced and does not agree with paragraph above. Both need sources.  "For the same reason he supported the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War, which was even more violently anti-Catholic."-->

In Mexico, the main issue was the government's efforts to shut down Catholic schools;{{citation needed |date=February 2021}} Daniels publicly approved these attacks and praised anti-Catholic Mexican politicians. In a July 1934 speech at the U.S. Embassy, Daniels praised the anti-Catholic efforts that had been led by former president [[Plutarco Elías Calles]]:

<blockquote>General Calles sees, as Jefferson saw, that no people can be both free and ignorant. Therefore, he and President Rodriguez, President-elect Cardenas and all forward-looking leaders are placing public education as the paramount duty of the country. They all recognize that General Calles issued a challenge that goes to the very root of the settlement of all problems of tomorrow when he said: 'We must enter and take possession of the mind of childhood, the mind of youth.'<ref>E. David Cronon, "American Catholics and Mexican Anticlericalism, 1933-1936," ''Mississippi Valley Historical Review'' (1958) 45#2 pp. 201-230 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1902927 in JSTOR]; quote p. 207</ref></blockquote>

However Daniels also warned Mexicans that they should not be so harsh towards the Church.<ref>Robert H. Vinca, "The American Catholic Reaction to the Persecution of the Church in Mexico, from 1926-1936," ''Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia'' (1968) Issue 1, pp 3-38.</ref> The issue became less salient as relations between the Mexican government and the Church improved under President Cárdenas, who took office in 1934 and drove Calles into exile.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://countrystudies.us/mexico/34.htm|title=Mexico – Cardenismo and the Revolution Rekindled|website=countrystudies.us|access-date=9 September 2017}}</ref>

==Return to North Carolina==
In 1941, his son, Jonathan, was named a special assistant to Roosevelt. At that time, Daniels resigned his ambassadorial post in Mexico to return to North Carolina due to his wife's poor health; she died in 1943. Upon returning he resumed the editor's post at ''The News & Observer''.

Daniels and his son Jonathan were passengers on Franklin Roosevelt's 1945 funeral train from Raleigh until Roosevelt's burial at his home of [[Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site|Springwood]] in [[Hyde Park, New York]]. The father and son rode the train back to [[Washington, D.C.]] in the company of widow [[Eleanor Roosevelt]] and the new president, [[Harry S. Truman]].<ref>''FDR's Funeral Train'' by Robert Klara</ref>

Daniels published several recollections of his years in public office. In addition to ''The Navy and the Nation,'' he wrote ''Our Navy at War'' (1922), ''The Life of Woodrow Wilson'' (1924), and ''The Wilson Era'' (1944). After completing a five-volume autobiography, in which he expressed regret over his race-baiting support for the white-supremacist campaign of the late 19th century (but not for white supremacy itself), Daniels died in Raleigh on January 15, 1948, at the age of eighty-five. He is buried in [[Historic Oakwood Cemetery]] of that city.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.historicoakwoodcemetery.com/stories_josephus_daniels.asp |title=Historic Oakwood Cemetery |access-date=September 30, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101006132702/http://www.historicoakwoodcemetery.com/stories_josephus_daniels.asp |archive-date=October 6, 2010 }}</ref>

Daniels divided his shares of the ''News & Observer'' among all his children and Jonathan became editor. The family retained control until it sold the paper in 1995.<ref>Zogry,  "Josephus Daniels,"  p. 304.</ref>

==Marriage and family==
[[File:FRANK A. DANIELS DANIELS (right) WITH BROTHER JONATHAN DANIELS (left), SONS OF JOSEPHUS DANIELS - LCCN2016864851 (cropped).tif|left|thumb|Frank A. Daniels II (right) with brother [[Jonathan W. Daniels]] (left), sons of Josephus Daniels, in 1915]]
In 1888, Daniels married [[Addie Worth Bagley Daniels|Addie Worth Bagley]], the granddaughter of former Governor [[Jonathan Worth (Governor)|Jonathan Worth]] and later an American [[suffrage|suffragist]] leader and writer. They had four sons: Josephus, Worth Bagley, [[Jonathan W. Daniels|Jonathan Worth]], and Frank A. Daniels II. Jonathan followed his father into public service, serving as a special assistant and, briefly, [[White House Press Secretary]] to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1940s.

Josephus Daniels had a cousin, younger by 11 years, [[John T. Daniels]], the Coast Guard member assigned to the Kill Devil Life-Saving Station in 1903, who took the famous photo of the [[Wright brothers]] in humanity's first ever successful piloted airplane flight, with Orville at the controls of the [[Wright Flyer]].<ref>[https://edan.si.edu/slideshow/viewer/?eadrefid=NASM.XXXX.0393_ref505 https://edan.si.edu/slideshow/viewer/?eadrefid=NASM.XXXX.0393_ref505], stated at the bottom of Image 9 on Page 5 of 11 (alternatively, PDF page 115 of254)</ref>

==Legacy and honors==
*In 1956, the new Daniels Middle School in Raleigh was named after him. On June 16, 2020, the Wake County Board of Education voted unanimously to rescind the naming of the school and to rename it Oberlin Middle School. Daniels Hall on [[North Carolina State University]]'s main campus was also named after him.<ref>{{cite web |title=Daniels Hall |url=https://projects.ncsu.edu/facilities/buildings/daniels.html |website=North Carolina State University |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190509003133/https://projects.ncsu.edu/facilities/buildings/daniels.html |archive-date=May 9, 2019 |url-status=dead}}</ref> On June 22, 2020, the NC State Board of Trustees voted to rename Daniels Hall. Chancellor [[Randy Woodson]] said "Josephus Daniels had strong ties to white supremacy and played a leading role in the [[Wilmington insurrection of 1898]]. The building’s name had served as a constant reminder of a shameful part of our state’s history."<ref>{{cite web | author=WRAL | title=NC State Board of Trustees votes to remove the name 'Daniels' from Daniels Hall :: WRAL.com | website=WRAL.com | date=June 22, 2020 | url=https://www.wral.com/nc-state-board-of-trustees-votes-to-remove-the-name-daniels-from-daniels-hall/19155741/ | access-date=June 22, 2020}}</ref> Until future renovations are completed, the building has been temporarily denoted "Beat Navy Hall" in recognition of the strong partnerships with the US Army and the academic departments within the building. Students and faculty alike simply refer to the building by its street address, 111 Lampe, or simply Lampe for the street it is located on.
* {{USS|Josephus Daniels}}
*His home, [[Josephus Daniels House|Wakestone]], is now a [[National Historic Landmark]].  It was used as a [[Masonic Temple]] before its demolition in August 2021.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=1654&ResourceType=Building|title=National Historic Landmarks Program (NHL)|date=August 22, 2007|access-date=December 16, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070822062940/http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=1654&ResourceType=Building|archive-date=August 22, 2007}}</ref>
*According to historian [[John M. Cooper (historian)|John Milton Cooper]]:<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Daniels, Josephus |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of American Biography |year=1974 |last=Cooper |first=John Milton Jr. |author-link=John M. Cooper (historian) |editor-last=Garraty |editor-first=John A. |editor-link=John A. Garraty |pages=252–253}}</ref>
{{blockquote|Josephus Daniels epitomized, often simultaneously, much of the best and worst in the post-Civil War South. Lifelong sympathy for the poor and underprivileged led him to champion the causes of public education, organized labor, women's rights, freedom of the press, religious liberty, and democratic government{{nbsp}}... Yet at the same time he fully shared, even capitalized upon, the prejudices of his fellow Southern whites{{nbsp}}... Despite frequent clashes with party conservatives, Daniels never wavered in his Southern Democratic loyalty, and though his early Negrophobia mellowed decidedly in later years, he declined to question white supremacy{{nbsp}}... Daniels broke with [[William Jennings Bryan|[William Jennings] Bryan]] in the 1920s over the antievolution crusade and the Ku Klux Klan. Similarly in spite of a common attachment to peace, the two men split during World War I. In personality and as a public figure, Daniels combined two sets of contrasting qualities: gentle amiability and combative controversiality; unaffected simplicity of character and outlook and shrewd, skillful management of men and affairs{{nbsp}}... On balance, his contributions to the South fell heavily on the side of humanitarianism and progress, and both his newspaper and his sons continued Daniels's example of enlightened, responsible journalism and public service.}}

A statue of Daniels formerly stood in Nash Square in Raleigh. It was removed on June 16, 2020, after the [[murder of George Floyd]] and subsequent widespread civil unrest. Members of the Daniels family approved of the removal.<ref name="WRAL 2020">{{cite web | author=WRAL | title=Family removes statue of white supremacy supporter from downtown Raleigh :: WRAL.com | website=WRAL.com | date=June 16, 2020 | url=https://www.wral.com/family-removes-statue-of-white-supremacy-supporter-from-downtown-raleigh/19146514/ | access-date=June 16, 2020}}</ref>

==In fiction==
In [[Harry Turtledove]]'s "[[Southern Victory]]" series of [[alternate history]] novels, Daniels was US Secretary of the Navy during the timeline's analog of World War I, and the US Navy named a destroyer escort after him during the series's version of World War II.

==Selected works==
* 1919 — [https://archive.org/details/navynation0003dani ''The Navy and the Nation.''] New York: George H. Doran Company.  [http://www.worldcat.org/wcpa/oclc/1450710 OCLC 1450710]
* 1922 — [https://books.google.com/books?id=kY2JIgAACAAJ ''Our Navy at War.'']{{Dead link|date=April 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} Washington, D.C.: Pictorial Bureau.  [http://www.worldcat.org/wcpa/oclc/1523367 OCLC 1523367]
* 1924 — [https://books.google.com/books?id=NMjlGAAACAAJ ''The Life of Woodrow Wilson, 1856–1924.''] Philadelphia: Universal Book and Bible House. [http://www.worldcat.org/wcpa/oclc/4894794 OCLC 4894794]. [https://books.google.com/books?id=I_VRG0z8d9wC reprint] by Kessinger Publishing, 2004. {{ISBN|978-0-7661-8631-6}}; [http://www.worldcat.org/wcpa/oclc/81967751 OCLC 81967751]
* 1939 — [https://books.google.com/books?id=eFJpAAAAIAAJ ''Tar Heel Editor.''] Chapel Hill: [[University of North Carolina Press]]. [http://www.worldcat.org/wcpa/oclc/335116 OCLC 335116]
* 1941 — [https://archive.org/details/editorinpolitics0000dani ''Editor in Politics.''] Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. [http://www.worldcat.org/wcpa/oclc/339245 OCLC 339245]
* 1944 — [https://books.google.com/books?id=YyyZGAAACAAJ ''The Wilson Era: Years of Peace, 1910–1917.''] Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.  [http://www.worldcat.org/wcpa/oclc/750810 OCLC 750810 (1944 edition)]; [http://www.worldcat.org/wcpa/oclc/63786963 OCLC 63786963 (1946 edition)]
* 1946 -- [https://archive.org/details/wilsonerayearsofwar00dani ''The Wilson Era: Years of War and After, 1917–1923''], Volume 4. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
* 1947 — [https://books.google.com/books?id=u1A5AAAAMAAJ ''Shirt-sleeve Diplomat.''] Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. {{OCLC|422237}}

==Notes==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
{{Div col}}
* Cronon, E. David. (1960). [https://archive.org/details/josephusdanielsi0000cron <!-- quote=josephus daniels. -->  ''Josephus Daniels in Mexico.''] (University of Wisconsin Press). {{ISBN|978-0-299-02061-3}}
* {{cite journal
|last=Campbell
|first=W. Joseph
|title='One of the Fine Figures of American Journalism': A Closer Look at Josephus Daniels of the Raleigh 'News and Observer'
|journal=[[American Journalism]]
|year=1999
|volume=16
|number=4
|pages=37–55|doi=10.1080/08821127.1999.10739206
}} on his leadership of white racism
* {{cite book
|last=Craig
|first=Lee A.
|year=2013
|isbn=9781469606958
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f3931hwe1IEC&q=Daniels,+Josephus&pg=PA448
|title=Josephus Daniels: His Life and Times
|publisher=[[University of North Carolina Press]]}}
* Gerber, Larry G. ''The Limits of Liberalism: Josephus Daniels, Henry Stimson, Bernard Baruch, Donald Richberg, Felix Frankfurter and the Development of the Modern American Political Economy'' (1984)
* {{cite news
|first=Patrick M.
|last=Kirkwood
|title=His Life and Times: The Many Careers of Josephus Daniels (review of Lee Craig's book)
|publisher=H-SHGAPE ([[h-Net]])
|date=March 2014
|url=https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=39608}} 
* Morrison, Joseph L. ''Josephus Daniels: The Small-d Democrat'' (University of North Carolina Press 1966), scholarly biography
* {{cite book
|last=Prather
|first=H. Leon
|title=We have taken a city : the Wilmington racial massacre and coup of 1898
|isbn=0972324089
|edition=Updated with additional photos
|location=[[Southport, North Carolina]]
|publisher=Dram Tree Books
|year=2006}}
* Thelander, Theodore A. "Josephus Daniels and the Publicity Campaign for Naval and Industrial Preparedness before World War I," ''North Carolina Historical Review'' (1966) 43#3 pp 316–332.
* Williams, William J. "Josephus Daniels and the U.S. Navy's Shipbuilding Program during World War I," ''Journal of Military History'' (1996) 60#1 pp 7–38.
* Zogry, Kenneth. "Josephus Daniels" in Howard Cappy. Covington, and Marion A. Ellis, eds (2002). [https://books.google.com/books?id=iqNmAAAAMAAJ&q=Kenneth+Joel+Zogry  ''The North Carolina Century: Tar Heels who Made a Difference, 1900-2000.''] Charlotte, North Carolina: Levine Museum of the New South. {{ISBN|978-0-8078-2757-4}}; [http://www.worldcat.org/wcpa/oclc/50124471 OCLC 50124471]
*{{cite book|last1=Zucchino|first1=David|title=Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy|date=2020|publisher=Atlantic Monthly Press|isbn=9780802128386}}
{{Div col end}}

===Primary sources===
* {{cite journal
|last=Daniels
|first=Josephus
|title=The Significance of Naval Preparedness
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u1A5AAAAMAAJ&q=josephus+daniels&pg=PA147
|journal=The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
|volume=66–68
|date=July–November 1916}}
* {{cite book
|title=The cabinet diaries of Josephus Daniels, 1913-1921.
|first=Josephus
|last=Daniels
|editor-first=Edmund David
|editor-last=Cronon
|publisher=[[University of Nebraska Press]]
|oclc=467047
|year=1963}}
* Kittredge, Tracy Barrett. (1921). [https://archive.org/details/navallessonsgre00kittgoog  ''Naval Lessons of the Great War: A Review of the Senate Naval Investigation of the Criticisms by Admiral Sims of the Policies and Methods of Josephus Daniels.''] Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page & Company. [http://www.worldcat.org/wcpa/oclc/1900437 OCLC 1900437]

==External links==
{{Commons category|Josephus Daniels}}
{{wikisource|works=or}}
* {{Gutenberg author |id=Daniels,+Josephus | name=Josephus Daniels}}
* {{Internet Archive author}}
*[https://books.google.com/books?id=AHEAAAAAYAAJ Detailed 1916 Article on Daniels with photos]
*[https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/findingaids/mss00027 Guide to the Josephus Daniels Letter and Address 1939, 1943]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20050122023133/http://statelibrary.dcr.state.nc.us/nc/bio/ncbiz/daniels.htm "Josephus Daniels" from the ''North Carolina Encyclopedia'', The State Library of North Carolina]
*[https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/People/Woodrow_Wilson/DANLWW/home.html Life of Woodrow Wilson by Josephus Daniels]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070509180519/http://www.lib.unc.edu/ncc/1898/bios/daniels.html North Carolina Election of 1898]
*{{Find a Grave|8063314}}
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20180505174712/http://www.history.ncdcr.gov/1898-wrrc/report/report.htm 2006 Report of the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission]
*Daniel E. Worthington: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/daniels_josephus/ Daniels, Josephus], in: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/home.html/ 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War].

{{s-start}}
{{s-gov}}
{{succession box |
  before= [[George von Lengerke Meyer|George von L. Meyer]] |
  title= [[United States Secretary of the Navy]] |
  years= March 5, 1913 &ndash; March 4, 1921 |
  after= [[Edwin C. Denby|Edwin Denby]]}}
{{s-dip}}
{{succession box |title=[[List of United States Ambassadors to Mexico|U.S. Ambassador to Mexico]] | before=[[J. Reuben Clark|J. Reuben Clark, Jr.]] | after=[[George S. Messersmith]] | years=March 17, 1933 &ndash; November 9, 1941}}
{{s-end}}
{{USSecNavy}}
{{Wilson cabinet}}
{{US Ambassadors to Mexico}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Daniels, Josephus}}
[[Category:1862 births]]
[[Category:1948 deaths]]
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[[Category:Ambassadors of the United States to Mexico]]
[[Category:Daniels family|Josephus]]
[[Category:United States government officials of World War I]]
[[Category:Burials at Historic Oakwood Cemetery]]
[[Category:Duke University Trinity College of Arts and Sciences alumni]]
[[Category:Politicians from Raleigh, North Carolina]]
[[Category:People from Wilson, North Carolina]]
[[Category:Political violence in the United States]]
[[Category:The News & Observer]]
[[Category:Candidates in the 1924 United States presidential election]]
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[[Category:Wilmington massacre conspirators]]
[[Category:American temperance activists]]
[[Category:American suffragists]]