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Harold Ross

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For the cultural anthropologist, seeHarold M. Ross.
Harold Ross
Born
Harold Wallace Ross

(1892-11-06)November 6, 1892
Aspen, Colorado,U.S.
DiedDecember 6, 1951(1951-12-06)(aged 59)
Boston, Massachusetts,U.S.
Resting placeEmerald MountainsAspen, Colorado
OccupationPublisher
Known forCo-foundingThe New Yorker

Harold Wallace Ross(November 6, 1892 – December 6, 1951) was an American journalist who co-foundedThe New Yorkermagazine in 1925 with his wifeJane Grant,and was itseditor-in-chiefuntil his death.

Early life[edit]

Born in a prospector's cabin[1]inAspen, Colorado,Ross was the son ofScots-Irish[2]immigrant miner George Ross and schoolteacher Ida (néeMartin) Ross.[3]When he was eight, the family left Aspen because of the collapse in the price of silver, moving toRedcliffandSilverton, Colorado,then toSalt Lake City, Utah.In Utah, he worked on the high school paper (The West High Red & Black) and was astringerforThe Salt Lake Tribune,the city's leading daily newspaper. He dropped out of school at 13 and ran away to his uncle inDenver,where he worked forThe Denver Post.Though he returned to his family, he did not return to school, instead getting a job at theSalt Lake Telegram,a smaller afternoon daily newspaper.

By the time he was 25 he had worked for at least seven different papers, including theMarysville, CaliforniaAppeal;theSacramento Union;thePanamaStar and Herald;theNew OrleansItem;theAtlanta Journal;theHudson ObserverinHoboken;theBrooklyn Eagle;and theSan Francisco Call.

InAtlanta, Georgia,he covered the murder trial ofLeo Frank,one of the "trials of the century". DuringWorld War I,he enlisted in theUnited States Army's18th Engineer Regimentin 1917. In France, he edited the regimental journal and went to Paris to work for theStars and Stripes,serving from February 1918 to April 1919. He claimed to have walked 150 miles from officer's training school at Langres, France to reach Paris to write forStars and Stripes,[3][1]where he metAlexander Woollcott,Cyrus Baldridge,Franklin Pierce Adams,andJane Grant,who would become his first wife and helped backThe New Yorker.

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 theAmerican Legion Weekly.He spent a few months atJudge,a humor magazine.

The New Yorker[edit]

The iconic cover of the debut issue ofThe New Yorker.

Ross envisioned a new journal of metropolitan sensibilities and a sophisticated tone. This led him to co-foundThe New Yorkerwith 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.[4]

Ross was an original member of theAlgonquin Round Table.He used his contacts in "The Vicious Circle" to help getThe New Yorkerstarted. Ross, said byAlexander Woollcottto resemble "a dishonestAbe Lincoln",[5]attracted talent to his new publishing venture, ultimately featuring writers such as Woollcott,James Thurber,E. B. White,John McNulty,Joseph Mitchell,Katharine S. White,S. J. Perelman,Janet Flanner,Wolcott Gibbs,St. Clair McKelway,John O'Hara,Robert Benchley,Dorothy Parker,Vladimir Nabokov,Sally Benson,A. J. Liebling,andJ. D. Salinger.[3]

The original prospectus for the magazine read, "TheNew Yorkerwill be the magazine which is not edited for the old lady in Dubuque. "[3]Thurber noted the prospectus does not read or sound like Ross,[6]summarizing Ross's goals so:

[Casuals] was Ross's word for fiction and humorous pieces of all kinds... [it] indicated Ross's determination to give the magazine an offhand, chatty, informal quality. Nothing was to be labored or studied, arty, literary, or intellectual.[7]

Ross forbade sex as a subject, checking all art and articles for off-color jokes or double entendre[8]and rejected advertisements thought unsuitable. Ross disliked fatalistic pieces and sought to minimize "social-conscious stuff," calling such articles "grim."[9]

During theSecond World War,theNew Yorkerran on a skeleton staff after many contributors joined the war effort. Ross and his assistantWilliam Shawnwould put in six to seven days a week. To cultivate relationships, they published some PR works from theUnited States Department of War."Survival",John Hersey's profile of future presidentJohn F. Kennedy,was also submitted to the department before receiving clearance. Kennedy's fatherJoseph P. Kennedy Sr.was disappointed that the story had gone to theNew 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 theReader's Digest.Hundreds of thousands of copies would be distributed during the younger Kennedy's eventual campaigns for theU.S. House of Representativesand later the presidency.[10]: 37–41 

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 were recognizable to everyone in the English-speaking world wereHarry HoudiniandSherlock Holmes.[11]

Quite aware of his limited education, Ross treatedFowler's Modern English Usageas his Bible. He edited every issue of the magazine from the first until his death—a total of 1,399 issues. He was notorious for overusing commas.[11]Ross designated Shawn as his preferred successor, which Fleischmann confirmed after Ross died.[12]

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 shapedThe New Yorkerstaff. Ross and his magazine slowly became famous among literati and newspapermen. Thurber quotedJohn Duncan Miller,the Washington, D.C., correspondent forThe Timesof 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 theNew Yorker.I left there realizing that nobody else in the world could.[13]

He kept up a voluminous correspondence, which is preserved at theNew York Public Library.

Death[edit]

Ross died inBoston,Massachusettsin 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.[3]

Bibliography[edit]

  • Kunkel, Thomas (1995),Genius in Disguise: Harold Ross of the New Yorker,New York: Random House,ISBN0-679-41837-7.
  • Yagoda, Ben (2000),About Town: The New Yorker and the World It Made,New York: Scribners,ISBN0-684-81605-9.
  • Top Hat and Tales: Harold Ross and the Making of the New Yorker(movie) (Carousel Film and Video, 2001, 47 minutes)[14][15]

References[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^abLepore, Jill(April 19, 2010)."Untimely: What was at stake in the spat between Henry Luce and Harold Ross?".newyorker.Condé Nast.RetrievedJune 8,2018.
  2. ^Montgomery, Michael,"Scotch Irish or Scots Irish: What's in a Name?",Ulster Scots Language Society,retrievedJuly 31,2015
  3. ^abcdeTobias, 2000.
  4. ^Obituary: Raoul Fleischman,nytimes. Accessed April 12, 2022.
  5. ^Thurber 1959,p. 278.
  6. ^Thurber 1959,pp. 84–85.
  7. ^Thurber 1959,p. 13.
  8. ^Thurber 1959,pp. 12–13.
  9. ^Thurber 1959,pp. 171–172.
  10. ^Blume, Lesley M. M. (2020).Fallout: the Hiroshima cover-up and the reporter who revealed it to the world(First Simon & Schuster hardcover ed.). New York.ISBN9781982128517.{{cite book}}:CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  11. ^abThurber, 1959, p. 267. "TheNew Yorker's overuse of commas, originating in Ross's clarification complex, has become notorious the world over among literary people. "
  12. ^Thurber 1959,pp. 305, 307.
  13. ^Thurber 1959,p. 204.
  14. ^James, Caryn (May 13, 2001)."Neighborhood Report: CRITIC'S VIEW; How The New Yorker Took Wing In Its Larval Years With Ross".The New York Times.
  15. ^Handman, Gary (May 2006),Quick Vids,American Libraries, p. 66

External links[edit]

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Preceded by
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 Editor ofThe New Yorker
1925–1951 		Succeeded by
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