Friedrich Nietzsche, “the insane German philosopher” immediately instilled feelings of fury and passion into Americans when his writings began getting translated to English in 1896. Originally dismissed as crazy, Nietzsche’s declaration that “God is dead” and his allegiance to irrational joy has been misunderstood by the general public since its conception. After scorning Nietzsche as an “idol to the foolish,” U.S. newspapers claimed Nietzsche’s “dangerous” ideas were responsible for global catastrophes like WWI. Despite such infamy, Nietzsche’s ideas later became praised by intellectuals in the very periodicals which originally condemned his work. Read more about it!

The information in this guide focuses on primary source materials found in the digitized historic newspapers from the digital collection Chronicling America.

The timeline below highlights important dates related to this topic and a section of this guide provides some suggested search strategies for further research in the collection.