newspaperman, b. Bear Creek, Sauk County. He attended Carroll College (Waukesha), and from 1873 to 1882 was employed in various capacities by the Waukesha Freeman, the Milwaukee Sentinel, and the St. Paul Dispatch. In Dec., 1882, he purchased Peter V. Deuster's (q.v.) interest in the newly founded Milwaukee Daily Journal, became its editor on Dec. 11, 1882, and held this position until his death. From the beginning, Nieman announced that his paper would be independent in party politics, and, while generally supporting the Democratic party, he frequently backed Republican candidates and policies. During the course of his editorship, Nieman built the Milwaukee Journal from a small political campaign sheet into one of the most highly respected newspapers in the nation. From the outset, he assailed the Republican political machine entrenched in Wisconsin. In 1890 he supported George W. Peck (q.v.), the Democratic candidate for governor, but in 1896 vigorously opposed Presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan and free silver. Throughout his career, Nieman and the journal urged the strict regulation of public utilities, conservation of the state's natural resources, reforestation, development of the state's water-power resources, and a better highway program. He denounced the state Bennett Law of 1889, which required that instruction be given in English in private, parochial, and public schools throughout the state. His campaign against alienism in World War I brought the journal a Pulitzer award in 1919. His name is perpetuated in the Lucius W. Nieman Fellowships in Journalism, financed by a bequest from his wife, and administered by Harvard Univ. Dict. Amer. Biog., Suppl. 1; Natl. Cyclopaedia Amer. Biog., 27 (1939); F. L. Holmes, et al., eds., Wis. (5 vols., Chicago, 1946); Milwaukee Sentinel, Oct. 2, 1935; Milwaukee Journal, Oct. 1, 1935.

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[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]