July 1, 1853
The San Antonio Zeitung, a “Social-Democratic Newspaper for the Germans in West Texas,” began weekly publication as San Antonio’s first German-language newspaper under the editorship of C. D. Adolph Douai, a German-born scholar, teacher, and social reformer. The newspaper, written largely in German, was aimed at the large German population in San Antonio and the surrounding region. In a prospectus Douai announced that the Zeitung would regard every political question from the viewpoint of social progress. In 1854 a series of editorials attacked the institution of slavery as an evil incompatible with democratic government, a form of government that required “free tillers of their own soil.”
