Early Life
Atkinson was born near Newcastle, Ontario in 1865. His early life was difficult, creating conditions which would eventually lead to his social activism. His father died when he was six months old, his mother when he was thirteen.
At about the age of 16, while working at the post office, he began to sign his name as "Joseph E. Atkinson" even though he had been given no middle name at birth. Looking for a better job, Atkinson hoped to become a banker, but through his post office work he found out about a job opening at the Port Hope Times, a weekly newspaper in Port Hope, Ontario. He joined the paper at age 18, initially collecting accounts. When the Times started publishing daily, Atkinson became a reporter.
In October 1888, he jumped to the Toronto World and a few months later joined the Globe, one of the newspapers which would become The Globe and Mail. After two years, he became the Globe's Ottawa correspondent, a position he held for seven years. Atkinson then became managing editor of the Montreal Herald in 1897.
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