Heywood Broun

Heywood Broun, around 1935

Heywood Campbell Broun (born December 7, 1888 in Brooklyn , New York , † December 18, 1939 in Stamford , Connecticut ) was an American sports journalist and critic .

Life

Heywood Broun was the son of a British immigrant who ran a successful printing company in New York City . From 1906 he studied at Harvard University , under George Santayana and William James . He soon became close friends with Walter Lippmann and John Reed . He focused on philosophy and English literature , and graduated after just four years.

After graduating, Broun worked for several New York City newspapers, including the New York Tribune , New York World , New York World Telegram, and the New York Telegraph . During the First World War he was a foreign correspondent for the New York Tribune magazine in France . He was a frequent guest in the literary circle at New York's Algonquin Hotel , called the Algonquin Round Table , a loose association of journalists, writers and actors .

Group photo of some sports journalists, Heywood Broun sitting on the right, around 1920

In 1921 Broun got his own column ( It Seems to Me ). Over the next several years he wrote against censorship and racial discrimination and for academic freedom. He also supported the people, like Margaret Sanger , John Thomas Scopes, and DH Lawrence , who were persecuted in the United States for their political and social beliefs. In May 1921, his wife Ruth Hale founded the women's organization Lucy Stone League , whose aim, among other things, was that women can keep their maiden name after marriage. Among the co-founders were Jane Grant , wife of Harold Ross , and Beatrice Kaufman , wife of playwright George Simon Kaufman . Members also included Neysa McMein , Janet Flanner , Franklin Pierce Adams , Solita Solano , Anita Loos , Fannie Hurst and Blanche Oelrichs . In August 1927 the Broun-Hale couple played a leading role in the protests against the execution of the Italian immigrants Sacco and Vanzetti , charged with involvement in a double robbery. Together with Dorothy Parker and John Dos Passos , they traveled to Boston to demonstrate against the death penalty. They accused the US judiciary that it was a politically motivated judicial murder based on questionable evidence.

In addition to his journalistic and literary work, Broun was also active in politics. In the 1930s, his election to Congress was unsuccessful. In 1933 he founded the American Newspaper Guild and was its first president until his death. Heywood Broun died of complications from pneumonia . Over 4,000 mourners attended the memorial service at New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral , including New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia , columnist Franklin Pierce Adams , producer George M. Cohan , actress Tallulah Bankhead, and stage and screenwriter George Simon Kaufman . He is buried in the Gates of Heaven Cemetery on Long Island .

Marriages

1917–1933 with Ruth Hale, journalist and feminist . The mutual connection resulted in a son, Heywood Jr. (* 1918).
1935 Constantia Maria Incoronata Fruscella, Spanish dancer and singer . Their daughter, Patricia (* 1933), was born in their first marriage to Frances Dooly, and after the marriage he adopted her.

literature

Joseph Lash: A World of Love: Eleanor Roosevelt and Her Friends 1943–1962. Doubleday & Company Inc., Garden City, NY 1984

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Broun, Heywood
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Broun, Heywood Campbell (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American sports journalist and critic
DATE OF BIRTH	December 7, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH	Brooklyn , New York
DATE OF DEATH	December 18, 1939
Place of death	Stamford , Connecticut