Harold Ross

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Harold Ross as a soldier in the First World War, around 1918

Harold Wallace Ross (born November 6, 1892 in Aspen , Colorado , † December 6, 1951 in Boston , Massachusetts ) was an American journalist and founder of The New Yorker newspaper .

Life

Harold Wallace Ross was the son of the Irish émigré George Ross and his wife Ida Martin. At the age of thirteen he became a reporter for The Salt Lake Tribune newspaper . He later worked for several other newspapers including the Salt Lake Telegram , The Denver Post , The Atlanta Journal , The Brooklyn Eagle, and The San Francisco Call . When the First World War broke out , he volunteered for the army and came to France with the US Army Eighteenth Engineers Railway Regiment . In Paris , Ross worked for the Stars and Stripes , an eight-page troop newspaper. Within a very short time he made the acquaintance of the journalists Alexander Woollcott , Cyrus Baldridge , Franklin Pierce Adams and Jane Grant .

Back in New York City , he was a frequent guest in the literary circle at the Algonquin Hotel , called the Algonquin Round Table , a loose group of journalists, writers, and actors. With the financial support of Raoul Fleischmann , Ross founded his own newspaper ( The New Yorker ) in 1925 . Initially, the magazine focused on the social and cultural life in New York City. Short stories, cartoons, biographical profiles and art reviews were added later. Well-known journalists include Janet Flanner , Jane Grant , Ruth Hale , Dorothy Parker , Robert E. Sherwood , Heywood Broun , Robert Benchley , Alice Duer Miller and many others. Ross had influence on the newspaper until his death from cancer on December 6, 1951. He was succeeded by William Shawn .

Marriages

Harold Wallace Ross was married three times:

  • 1920–1929 Jane Grant
  • 1934–1939 Marie-Française Eli; a daughter
  • 1940 Ariane Allen

literature

  • Thomas Kunkel: Genius in Disguise: Harold Ross of the New Yorker. Random House, 1995, ISBN 0-679-41837-7
  • James Thurber: The Years With Ross. Boston 1959, ISBN 0-06-095971-1
  • Ben Yagoda: About Town: The New Yorker and the World It Made. Scribners, 2000, ISBN 0-684-81605-9

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Ross, Harold
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ross, Harold Wallace (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American journalist and founder of The New Yorker newspaper
DATE OF BIRTH November 6, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Aspen , Colorado
DATE OF DEATH December 6, 1951
Place of death Boston , Massachusetts