Harold Wallace Ross (November 6, 1892 – December 6, 1951) was an American journalist who co-founded ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' magazine in 1925 with his wife
Jane Grant
Jane Grant (May 29, 1892 – March 16, 1972) was a New York City journalist who co-founded ''The New Yorker'' with her first husband, Harold Ross.
Life and career
Jane Grant was born Jeanette Cole Grant in Joplin, Missouri, and grew up and w ...
, and was its
editor-in-chief
An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies.
The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...
until his death.
Early life
Born in a prospector's cabin
in
Aspen, Colorado
Aspen is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Pitkin County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 7,004 at the 2020 United States Census. Aspen is in a remote area of the Rocky Moun ...
, Ross was the son of
Scots-Irish immigrant miner George Ross and schoolteacher Ida ( Martin) Ross.
[ When he was eight, the family left Aspen because of the collapse in the price of silver, moving to Redcliff and ]Silverton, Colorado
Silverton is a statutory town that is the county seat, the most populous community, and the only incorporated municipality in San Juan County, Colorado, United States. The town is located in a remote part of the western San Juan Mountains, a ra ...
, then to Salt Lake City, Utah
Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...
. In Utah, he worked on the high school paper (''The West High Red & Black'') and was a stringer
Stringer may refer to:
Structural elements
* Stringer (aircraft), or longeron, a strip of wood or metal to which the skin of an aircraft is fastened
* Stringer (slag), an inclusion, possibly leading to a defect, in cast metal
* Stringer (stairs), ...
for '' The Salt Lake Tribune'', the city's leading daily newspaper. He dropped out of school at 13 and ran away to his uncle in Denver
Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...
, where he worked for ''The Denver Post
''The Denver Post'' is a daily newspaper and website published in Denver, Colorado. As of June 2022, it has an average print circulation of 57,265. In 2016, its website received roughly six million monthly unique visitors generating more than 13 ...
''. Though he returned to his family, he did not return to school, instead getting a job at the ''Salt Lake Telegram
This is a list of defunct newspapers of the United States. Only notable names among the thousands of such newspapers are listed, primarily major metropolitan dailies which published for ten years or more.
The list is sorted by distribution and st ...
'', a smaller afternoon daily newspaper.
By the time he was 25 he had worked for at least seven different papers, including the Marysville, California
Marysville is a city and the county seat of Yuba County, California, located in the Gold Country region of Northern California. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 12,072, reflecting a decrease of 196 from the 12,268 counted ...
''Appeal''; the Sacramento
)
, image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg
, mapsize = 250x200px
, map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...
''Union''; the Panama
Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Co ...
''Star and Herald''; the ''Item''; the Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
''Journal''; the Hoboken
Hoboken ( ; Unami: ') is a city in Hudson County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's population was 60,417. The Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program calculated that the city's population was 58,69 ...
''Hudson Observer''; the Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
''Eagle''; and the San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
''Call''.
In Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
, he covered the murder trial of Leo Frank
Leo Max Frank (April 17, 1884August 17, 1915) was an American factory superintendent who was convicted in 1913 of the murder of a 13-year-old employee, Mary Phagan, in Atlanta, Georgia. His trial, conviction, and appeals attracted national at ...
, one of the "trials of the century". During World War I, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Eighteenth Engineers Railway Regiment. In France, he edited the regimental journal and went to Paris to work for the '' Stars and Stripes,'' serving from February 1918 to April 1919. He claimed to have walked 150 miles to reach Paris to write for ''Stars and Stripes'',[Tobias, 2000.] where he met Alexander Woollcott
Alexander Humphreys Woollcott (January 19, 1887 – January 23, 1943) was an American drama critic and commentator for ''The New Yorker'' magazine, a member of the Algonquin Round Table, an occasional actor and playwright, and a prominent radio ...
, Cyrus Baldridge
Cyrus Leroy Baldridge (May 27, 1889 – June 6, 1977) was an artist, illustrator, author and adventurer. He was born to William Baldridge and Eliza Burgdorf Baldridge, in Alton, New York in 1889. When very young, his mother left his father and b ...
, Franklin Pierce Adams
Franklin Pierce Adams (November 15, 1881 – March 23, 1960) was an American columnist known as Franklin P. Adams and by his initials F.P.A.. Famed for his wit, he is best known for his newspaper column, "The Conning Tower", and his appearances a ...
, and Jane Grant
Jane Grant (May 29, 1892 – March 16, 1972) was a New York City journalist who co-founded ''The New Yorker'' with her first husband, Harold Ross.
Life and career
Jane Grant was born Jeanette Cole Grant in Joplin, Missouri, and grew up and w ...
, who would become his first wife and helped back ''The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
''.
After the war, he returned to New York City and assumed the editorship of a magazine for veterans, ''The Home Sector''. It folded in 1920 and was absorbed by the ''American Legion Weekly
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
''. He spent a few months at '' Judge'', a humor magazine.
''The New Yorker''
Ross envisioned a new journal of metropolitan sensibilities and a sophisticated tone. This led him to co-found ''The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' with his wife Jane Grant. The first issue was dated February 21, 1925. In partnership with yeast heir Raoul Fleischmann, they established F-R Publishing Company to publish it.
Ross was an original member of the Algonquin Round Table. He used his contacts in "The Vicious Circle" to help get ''The New Yorker'' started. Ross, said by Alexander Woollcott
Alexander Humphreys Woollcott (January 19, 1887 – January 23, 1943) was an American drama critic and commentator for ''The New Yorker'' magazine, a member of the Algonquin Round Table, an occasional actor and playwright, and a prominent radio ...
to resemble "a dishonest Abe Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation throu ...
", attracted talent to his new publishing venture, ultimately featuring writers such as Woollcott, James Thurber
James Grover Thurber (December 8, 1894 – November 2, 1961) was an American cartoonist, writer, humorist, journalist and playwright. He was best known for his cartoons and short stories, published mainly in ''The New Yorker'' and collected ...
, E. B. White
Elwyn Brooks White (July 11, 1899 – October 1, 1985) was an American writer. He was the author of several highly popular books for children, including ''Stuart Little'' (1945), ''Charlotte's Web'' (1952), and '' The Trumpet of the Swan'' ...
, John McNulty, Joseph Mitchell, Katharine S. White, S. J. Perelman
Sidney Joseph Perelman (February 1, 1904 – October 17, 1979) was an American humorist and screenwriter. He is best known for his humorous short pieces written over many years for ''The New Yorker''. He also wrote for several other magazines ...
, Janet Flanner
Janet Flanner (March 13, 1892 – November 7, 1978) was an American writer and pioneering narrative journalist who served as the Paris correspondent of ''The New Yorker'' magazine from 1925 until she retired in 1975.Yagoda, Ben ''About T ...
, Wolcott Gibbs
Wolcott Gibbs (March 15, 1902 – August 16, 1958) was an American editor, humorist, theatre critic, playwright and writer of short stories, who worked for ''The New Yorker'' magazine from 1927 until his death. He is notable for his 1936 parody o ...
, St. Clair McKelway
St. Clair McKelway (February 13, 1905 – January 10, 1980) was a writer and editor for ''The New Yorker'' magazine beginning in 1933.
Childhood
McKelway was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, to Alexander McKelway, a Presbyterian minister, ...
, John O'Hara, Robert Benchley
Robert Charles Benchley (September 15, 1889 – November 21, 1945) was an American humorist best known for his work as a newspaper columnist and film actor. From his beginnings at ''The Harvard Lampoon'' while attending Harvard University, thro ...
, Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker (née Rothschild; August 22, 1893 – June 7, 1967) was an American poet, writer, critic, and satirist based in New York; she was known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th-century urban foibles.
From a conflicted and unhap ...
, Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Bo ...
, Sally Benson
Sally Benson ('' née'' Sara Smith; September 3, 1897 – July 19, 1972) was an American writer of short stories and screenwriter. She is best known for her humorous tales of modern youth collected in '' Junior Miss'' and her semi-autobiographica ...
, A. J. Liebling, and J. D. Salinger
Jerome David Salinger (; January 1, 1919 January 27, 2010) was an American author best known for his 1951 novel ''The Catcher in the Rye''. Salinger got his start in 1940, before serving in World War II, by publishing several short stories in '' ...
.
The original prospectus for the magazine read, "The ''New Yorker'' will be the magazine which is not edited for the old lady in Dubuque." Thurber noted the prospectus does not read or sound like Ross, summarizing Ross's goals so:
asualswas Ross's word for fiction and humorous pieces of all kinds ... tindicated Ross's determination to give the magazine an offhand, chatty, informal quality. Nothing was to be labored or studied, arty, literary, or intellectual.
Ross forbade sex as a subject, checking all art and articles for off-color jokes or double entendre and rejected advertisements thought unsuitable. Ross disliked fatalistic pieces and sought to minimize "social-conscious stuff," calling such articles "grim."
During the Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, the ''New Yorker'' ran on a skeleton staff after many contributors joined the war effort. Ross and his assistant William Shawn
William Shawn ('' né'' Chon; August 31, 1907 – December 8, 1992) was an American magazine editor who edited ''The New Yorker'' from 1952 until 1987.
Early life and education
Shawn was born William Chon on August 31, 1907, in Chicago, Illino ...
would put in six to seven days a week. To cultivate relationships, they published some PR works from the United States Department of War
The United States Department of War, also called the War Department (and occasionally War Office in the early years), was the United States Cabinet department originally responsible for the operation and maintenance of the United States Army, a ...
. "Survival", John Hersey
John Richard Hersey (June 17, 1914 – March 24, 1993) was an American writer and journalist. He is considered one of the earliest practitioners of the so-called New Journalism, in which storytelling techniques of fiction are adapted to n ...
's profile of future president John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...
, was also submitted to the department before receiving clearance. Kennedy's father Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.
Joseph Patrick Kennedy (September 6, 1888 – November 18, 1969) was an American businessman, investor, and politician. He is known for his own political prominence as well as that of his children and was the patriarch of the Irish-American Ke ...
was disappointed that the story had gone to the ''New Yorker'', which he deemed too small and niche. An irritated Ross, who saw his magazine as an underdog competing against the larger powerhouses, relented into allowing a reprint of the story in the ''Reader's Digest
''Reader's Digest'' is an American general-interest family magazine, published ten times a year. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, it is now headquartered in midtown Manhattan. The magazine was founded in 1922 by DeWitt Wallace and his wi ...
''. Over hundreds of thousands of copies would be distributed during the younger Kennedy's eventual runs for the U.S. House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...
and later the presidency.
Ross worked long hours and ruined all three of his marriages as a result. He was a careful and conscientious editor who strove to keep his copy clear and concise. One famous query to his writers was "Who he?" Ross believed the only two people everyone in the English-speaking world was familiar with were Harry Houdini
Harry Houdini (, born Erik Weisz; March 24, 1874 – October 31, 1926) was a Hungarian-American escape artist, magic man, and stunt performer, noted for his escape acts. His pseudonym is a reference to his spiritual master, French magician ...
and Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes () is a fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a " consulting detective" in the stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with observation, deduction, forensic science and ...
. He was notorious for overusing commas.
Quite aware of his limited education, Ross treated ''Fowler's Modern English Usage
''A Dictionary of Modern English Usage'' (1926), by Henry Watson Fowler (1858–1933), is a style guide to British English usage, pronunciation, and writing. Covering topics such as plurals and literary technique, distinctions among like words ...
'' as his bible. He edited every issue of the magazine from the first until his death—a total of 1,399 issues. Ross designated Shawn as his preferred successor, which Fleischmann confirmed after Ross died.
James Thurber quotes the reminiscences of many colleagues of both men in his 1959 memoir, ''The Years with Ross'', citing his former chief's pranks, temper, profanity, anti-intellectualism, drive, perfectionism, and an almost permanent social discomfort, and how these all shaped ''The New Yorker'' staff. Ross and his magazine slowly became famous among literati and newspapermen. Thurber quoted John Duncan Miller, the Washington, D.C., correspondent for ''The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' of London, after meeting Ross in 1938:During the first half hour, I felt that Ross was the last man in the world who could edit the ''New Yorker''. I left there realizing that nobody else in the world could.
He kept up a voluminous correspondence, which is preserved at the New York Public Library
The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...
.
Death
Ross died in Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, in December 1951, during an operation to remove a lung after it was discovered his bronchial carcinoma had metastasized. He died of heart failure during the operation.
Bibliography
*.
*.
*''Top Hat and Tales: Harold Ross and the Making of the New Yorker'' (movie) (Carousel Film and Video, 2001, 47 minutes)
References
*.
*.
Notes
External links
Ross biography and career analysis
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ross, Harold
1892 births
1951 deaths
United States Army personnel of World War I
United States Army Corps of Engineers personnel
Military personnel from Colorado
American people of Scotch-Irish descent
American male journalists
American magazine editors
The_New_Yorker_editors
American magazine publishers (people)
Peabody Award winners
American magazine founders
People from Aspen, Colorado
Algonquin Round Table