"The Daily Cardinal" was founded as a rival to the monthly student paper "Aegis", by Monroe, Wisconsin native William Wesley Young, the brother of cartoonist Art Young and the University of Wisconsin–Madison's first journalism student, and William Saucerman. Four hundred free copies of the paper were made available to Wisconsin students on April 4, 1892. For the first month of production, Young rode his horse down State Street to the offices of the "Madison Democrat", which printed the "Cardinal". The newspaper's name was decided by a vote of university students, "Cardinal" representing one of the school colors.