Annenberg, Moses Louis (11 February 1878–20 July 1942), publisher and race wire operator, called by contemporaries "Moe", publisher and race wire operator, called by contemporaries “Moe,” was born in Kalwichen, East Prussia, the son of Tobias Annenberg, a storekeeper, and Sarah Greenberg, who were Orthodox Jews. In 1882 Tobias Annenberg moved to the United States, opening a store in “the Patch,” a tough neighborhood and breeding ground for criminals in Chicago. He saved enough money to send for his wife and children in 1885....
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Annenberg, Moses Louis (11 February 1878–20 July 1942), publisher and race wire operator, called by contemporaries "Moe"
John Cooney
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Barnett, Claude Albert (16 September 1889–02 August 1967), entrepreneur and journalist
Robert L. Harris
Barnett, Claude Albert (16 September 1889–02 August 1967), entrepreneur and journalist, was born in Sanford, Florida, the son of William Barnett, a hotel worker, and Celena Anderson, both of whom emphasized pride in their Black heritage. His parents separated when he was young, and Barnett moved to Mattoon, Illinois. He attended elementary school in Mattoon, Chicago, and Oak Park, Illinois. He went to Oak Park High School near Chicago and was a domestic worker for ...
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Barron, Clarence Walker (1855-1928), financial journalist
Kevin J. Hayes
Barron, Clarence Walker (02 July 1855–02 October 1928), financial journalist, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Henry Barron, a teamster, and Elana Noyes. He was educated at the Prescott Grammar School in Charlestown, Massachusetts, and Boston’s English High School, where he distinguished himself by writing prize-winning essays on railways and civil service reform. Preparing for a journalism career, Barron supplemented his writing talents by teaching himself shorthand, an activity he later would call “the best training for young men in practical life” ( ...
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Blackwell, Henry Browne (1825-1909), social reformer, editor, and entrepreneur
Debra Viles
Blackwell, Henry Browne (04 May 1825–07 September 1909), social reformer, editor, and entrepreneur, was born in Bristol, England, the son of Samuel Blackwell, a sugar refiner and antislavery reformer, and Hannah Lane. After business reversals the family moved in 1832 to New York, where their household became a haven for abolitionists, women’s rights advocates, and self-emancipated slaves. In 1838 the debt-ridden Blackwells moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. When his father died a few months later, thirteen-year-old Henry went to work to support the family, initially as a clerk in a flour mill. In 1845 he joined the two illiterate millers as a partner, and two years later his brother made him a partner in a hardware firm. Within a few years the enterprising Henry (“Harry” to his friends) had his finger in many economic pies—among them an agricultural publishing firm, land speculation, and sugar beet production (perhaps after his father, who had sought an alternative to slave-based sugar cane). At the same time Harry moved to the forefront of women’s rights agitation and abolitionism....
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Bush, John Edward (1856-1916), businessman and politician
Carl Moneyhon
Bush, John Edward (15 November 1856–11 December 1916), businessman and politician, was born a slave in Moscow, Tennessee. In 1862 his master moved him and his mother to Arkansas to keep them from being freed when the Union army moved into western Tennessee. His mother died when Bush was only seven years old. He was educated in the freedmen’s and public schools of Little Rock and was considered a good student by his teachers. He paid his school tuition by molding bricks. In 1876 he graduated from high school with honors and was immediately appointed principal of Capital Hill School, a public institution for African Americans in Little Rock. In 1878 he moved to Hot Springs, where he was named to head that city’s African-American high school....
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Cannon, Poppy (2 Aug. 1905–1 April 1975), cookbook author, journalist, and advertising executive
Laura Shapiro
Cannon, Poppy (2 Aug. 1905–1 April 1975), cookbook author, journalist, and advertising executive, was born Lillian Gruskin in Cape Town, South Africa, to Robert and Henrietta Gruskin, Jewish immigrants from Lithuania. (Henrietta’s maiden name is unknown.) The family moved to the United States in ...
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Cardozo, Jacob Newton (1786-1873), economist and journalist
William J. Barber
Cardozo, Jacob Newton (17 June 1786–30 August 1873), economist and journalist, was born in Savannah, Georgia, the son of David N. Cardozo, a member of the Sephardic Jewish mercantile community who had served in the South Carolina militia during the American Revolution (the identity of his mother is unknown). Cardozo had a modest formal education; he left school at the age of twelve and subsequently became a lumber clerk. From an early age he displayed a remarkable intellectual curiosity and a talent for writing. His career in journalism began in 1816 when he joined the staff of the ...
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Chandler, Harry (17 May 1864–23 Sept. 1944), newspaper publisher and promoter
Bruce J. Evensen
Chandler, Harry (17 May 1864–23 Sept. 1944), newspaper publisher and promoter, of Southern California, was the eldest of four children born in Landaff, New Hampshire to Moses Knight Chandler and Emma Jane (Little) Chandler, who worked in a bobbin factory in neighboring Lisbon....
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Cooper, Kent (1880-1965), journalist
Sandra Opdycke
Cooper, Kent (22 March 1880–31 January 1965), journalist, was born in Columbus, Indiana, the son of George William Cooper, a lawyer who served as mayor of Columbus and as a U.S. congressman, and Sina Green. Starting as a delivery boy, Cooper worked for Columbus newspapers from the time he was eleven until he entered Indiana University in 1898. In 1899, when his father died and he had to withdraw from college, he returned to reporting, first at the ...
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Coxe, Tench (1755-1824), promoter of American industrial growth and journalist
Brian Greenberg
Coxe, Tench (22 May 1755–16 July 1824), promoter of American industrial growth and journalist, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of William Coxe, a landowner and merchant, and Mary Francis. His great-grandfather Daniel Coxe, besides securing the family’s fortune as the principal proprietor of colonial New Jersey, apparently bequeathed to his great-grandson an intense appetite for land speculation. At age six Tench was enrolled in the academy division of the Philadelphia College and Academy (later the University of Pennsylvania), where he appears to have been an indifferent student. In 1772, after attending college for only a brief time (it is not clear what he studied), Coxe opened a small trading business. Four years later he became a partner in his father’s commercial firm, Coxe, Furman, and Coxe. Active in the social world of Philadelphia’s elite, Coxe also became a member in 1775 of the United Company of Philadelphia for Promoting American Manufactures, one of the nation’s earliest joint stock manufacturing companies....
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Dana, William Buck (1829-1910), publisher and entrepreneur
Douglas Steeples
Dana, William Buck (26 August 1829–10 October 1910), publisher and entrepreneur, was born in Utica, New York, the son of James Dana, a hardware merchant, and Harriet Dwight. He was born into the local mercantile elite and into a family profoundly affected by contemporary religious revivals. Prior to graduating from Yale in 1851, Dana won election to Skull and Bones, and in his senior autograph book, a classmate prophetically praised his financial ability. Returning to Utica, he studied law with his father’s counsel for a year and practiced successively with brother-in-law J. Wyman Jones and future brother-in-law N. Curtis White. Dana’s dependence on class, kin, and friendship ties characterized his entire career. He prospered at law, learning management and, from clients, much about business. He also evidenced Utica’s entrepreneurial spirit, becoming partner to a brother in an agricultural and seed warehouse and investing in the latter’s screw company....
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Field, Marshall, III (1893-1956)
Maker: Arnold Genthe
In
Marshall Field III In military uniform during World War I. Photograph by Arnold Genthe. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-93592).
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Field, Marshall, III (1893-1956), investor, newspaper publisher, and philanthropist
Robert L. Gale
Field, Marshall, III (28 September 1893–08 November 1956), investor, newspaper publisher, and philanthropist, was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Marshall Field II and Albertine Huck. Being the grandson of the first Marshall Field, the Chicago multimillionaire merchant and real-estate developer, meant that Field would be heir to fabulous wealth—all the sooner when his father, unhappy and passive in his active father’s shadow, committed suicide in 1905 and then when his beloved grandfather died of pneumonia two months later. Field’s mother, who had lived in England with her husband and their children and who disliked Chicago, returned to England. The grandfather’s will provided well for Albertine and gave Field and his younger brother a $75 million trust together. Field attended Eton (1907–1912) and then Trinity College, Cambridge (1912–1914), studying mostly history and vacationing with the horsy set. He returned to the United States in 1914 and married Evelyn Marshall the following year; the couple had three children, including Marshall Field IV. He also studied high finance and played polo. In April 1917 he volunteered as a private, despite his earlier rheumatic fever, in the First Illinois Cavalry (quickly converted to artillery service). He was soon commissioned and promoted, saw action in France as a captain with the Thirty-third Division, and was decorated for gallantry at Saint-Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne....
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Forbes, Malcolm Stevenson (1919-1990)
In
Malcolm Stevenson Forbes. Platinum print, 1985, by Thomas John Shillea. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of the A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust.
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Forbes, Malcolm Stevenson (1919-1990), publisher
Ellis W. Hawley
Forbes, Malcolm Stevenson (19 August 1919–24 February 1990), publisher, was born in New York City, the son of Bertie Charles Forbes, a newspaper columnist and and Adelaide Stevenson. Reared in a comfortable, upper-middle-class home in Englewood, New Jersey, Forbes attended private schools in Tarrytown, New York, and Lawrenceville, New Jersey. He graduated from Princeton University with a major in political science in 1941, and with the support of his father, the founder of ...
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Hamilton, Earl Jefferson (1899-1989), economic historian, editor, and educator
Ross B. Emmett
Hamilton, Earl Jefferson (17 May 1899–07 May 1989), economic historian, editor, and educator, was born in Houlka, Mississippi, the son of Joseph William Hamilton and Frances Regina Anne Williams. After graduating from Mississippi State University in 1920 with honors, Hamilton studied at the University of Texas, where he received an M.A. in 1924. He then went to Harvard University, where he completed both an A.M. (1926) and a Ph.D. (1929) in economics. In 1923 he married Gladys Olive Dallas; they had one child....
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Haynes, Williams (1886-1970), publisher, historian, and chemical economist
Robert M. Hawthorne
Haynes, Williams (29 July 1886–16 November 1970), publisher, historian, and chemical economist, was born Nathan Gallup Williams Haynes in Detroit, Michigan, the son of David Oliphant Haynes, owner and operator of a publishing company, and Helene Dunham Williams. He spent some time finding what he wanted to do with his life. After six months in his early twenties as a reporter for the ...
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Heard, Dwight Bancroft (1869-1929), investment banker, farmer, and publisher
Elizabeth Zoe Vicary
Heard, Dwight Bancroft (01 May 1869–14 March 1929), investment banker, farmer, and publisher, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Leander Bradford Heard, a wholesale grocer, and Lucy Bancroft. His father died in 1882. After Heard finished high school in Brookline, Massachusetts, his mother moved the family to Chicago, where Heard began work at the hardware sellers Hibbard, Spencer & Bartlett. The wife of the firm’s president, Adolphus Bartlett, was a distant relative of Heard, who quickly became Bartlett’s protégé. Heard was the company’s specialist in credit sales in Wisconsin and much of the Midwest. In 1893 he married Maie Pitkin Bartlett, Adolphus Bartlett’s daughter; they had one child....
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Ho, Chinn (1904-1987), financier, developer, and newspaper owner
Michaelyn P. Chou
Ho, Chinn (26 February 1904–12 May 1987), financier, developer, and newspaper owner, was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, the son of Ho Ti Yuen, a clerk at the segregated British Pacific Club, and Kam Lan. In the “Chinn Ho Oral History Project” Ho said a sickly childhood delayed his elementary schooling and made him a “runt” who was “pushed around” when he did begin regular classes. In the meantime, having become an avid reader of the Pacific Club’s discarded business periodicals brought home by his father, Ho realized that he had to extend his boundaries and perform better than expected to gain recognition. Through sports he improved physically. He sold soft drinks, newspapers, school supplies, and advertising gimmicks. He was a 20-year-old senior at McKinley High School (class of 1924) when he motivated a small group of classmates to stage school events, including a carnival that paid off the $38 class debt for breaking windows. After graduating, they organized a social and business ...
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Holbrooke, Richard (24 Apr. 1941–13 Dec. 2010), diplomat, magazine editor, and investment banker
Jason M. Adkins
Holbrooke, Richard (24 Apr. 1941–13 Dec. 2010), diplomat, magazine editor, and investment banker, was born Richard Charles Albert Holbrooke in New York City, the son of Dan Holbrooke, a doctor, and Trudi Kearl (née Moos), a potter. Holbrooke’s Jewish parents immigrated to the United States separately before his birth. His father emigrated in the 1930s from Warsaw, Poland, and changed his last name from Goldbrajch, while Trudi emigrated to the US from Germany, via Argentina. Holbrooke’s father died of cancer when Richard was fifteen. Holbrooke attended and graduated from Scarsdale High School in New York in ...
