page_title: The Independent Florida Alligator
section_title: Early history
hierarchical_section_title: The Independent Florida Alligator / History / Early history
caption_attribution_description: English: The front page of the Florida Alligator, the University of Florida's student newspaper, Vol. XI, Issue 14.
context_page_description: The Independent Florida Alligator is the daily student newspaper of the University of Florida. The Alligator is the largest student-run newspaper in the United States, with a daily circulation of 35,000 and readership of more than 52,000. It is an affiliate of UWIRE, which distributes and promotes its content to their network.
  The paper prints every Monday, Wednesday and Friday during the spring and fall semesters and on Tuesdays and Thursdays during the summer semesters. The Alligator has been financially and editorially independent from the university since 1973. The Alligator has been owned by non-profit, student-controlled 501 Campus Communications Inc. since its independence. Students from UF and Santa Fe College, also located in the city of Gainesville, Florida, are allowed to work at the paper. Only college students are allowed to work in the editorial department or be advertising representatives or interns.
  The Alligator is distributed free on campus and around Gainesville and contains a mix of campus and local news coverage, as well as national and international stories from wire services.
context_section_description: The Alligator began as an independent student-run newspaper called The University News on October 19, 1906. The paper came together in time to report on the University of Florida's opening ceremony in its new permanent home in Gainesville. Much of the first issue was devoted to reprinting word-for-word the farewell speech given by then-Florida Governor Napoleon B. Broward. 
  The Alligator remained independent until 1912, when it became part of the university and was renamed the Florida Alligator after the university's mascot, the Florida Gators.
  For the next six decades, the university's Office of Student Publications supervised the paper. The office was also responsible for the university's Seminole yearbook (later renamed The Tower), Florida Magazine, the Orange Peel humor magazine, and other recurring publications. Alligator staffers often worked on several of these at the same time. (None of the other publications still exist.) The Alligator also had a radio news show on campus station WRUF for many years.
  Until the 1950s, the university's student body selected the editor-in-chief in campus-wide elections, similar to student government. Candidates slated to political parties, published campaign ads, and debated each other not unlike today. The editor was roughly on the same level of prestige as the student body president, and various fraternities controlled the newspaper at one time or other.
  By the early 1960s, the rapid post-World War II growth of the university, which had started with the G.I. Bill and continued with the decision to admit women in 1947 and to admit blacks in 1958 caused The Alligator to grow. The newspaper printed in broadsheet until 1962 (except during World War II, when paper was in short supply). In 1962, the paper switched to the smaller tabloid format, which it still uses today. Around this time, The Alligator was one of the first college newspapers in the nation to switch from hot type printing to the more modern offset standard. That same year, the paper switched from twice-weekly printing to its current daily format.
  In 1963, Ed Barber started working at The Alligator, as a student writer. By 1972 he became general manager of the paper.
  Barber left the paper in 1973 to become Director of Publications for the university but returned as general manager in 1976 and became president of Campus Communications, Inc. Barber now holds the title of president emeritus of The Alligator and is executive director of the Alligator Alumni Association. Patricia Carey, a veteran manager of the newspaper, succeeded Barber as general manager of The Alligator and president of Campus Communications.
  Originally, the Office of Student Publications was located in the basement of the old Florida Union (today Dauer Hall), which was then the student union, in the north part of campus. In 1968, the paper moved into a new suite of offices on the third floor of the new union, the J. Wayne Reitz Union, directly adjacent to Student Government administrative offices. At least one of The Alligator former offices is now occupied by Florida Blue Key.
caption: A 1922 issue of the Florida Alligator.
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