The Publisher

by Alan Brinkley

15. Lila Luce Tyng interview; HRL to LH, March, n.d., 1923, LT.

  16. HRL to LH, March, n.d., June, n.d., 1923, October 10, 1923, LT.

  17. HRL to LH, June, n.d., 1923, July, n.d., 1923, HRL to Nettie McCormick, July 1, 1923, HRL to LH, July 5, 12, 1923, LT.

  18. HRL to LH, October 12, 1923, LT.

  19. HRL to LH, October 12, 18, 1923, LT.

  20. HRL to LH, July 29, October 15, 19, December, multiple n.d., 1923, LT; W. A. Swanberg, Luce and His Empire (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1972), p. 59.

  21. HRL to ERL, December 2, 1923, with undated notations by ERL, TIA; HRL to LH, December 18, 1923, LT.

  22. LH to HRL, n.d., 1926, LT.

  23. “The Move to Cleveland,” internal memo, n.d, TIA.

  24. HRL to LH, May 8, n.d., 1923, LT.

  25. “Mr. Luce at lunch with Bob Elson,” memo, April 29, 1965, TIA: HRL Elson interview, 1965, “Summary of Assets and Liabilities,” December 31, 1925, TIA.

  26. HRL Elson interview 1965, “The Move to Cleveland,” internal memo, n.d., TIA.

  27. HRL to LH, n.d., 1925, n.d., 1926, LT; HRL to parents, n.d., 1924, Beth to HRL, n.d., 1925, HRL Elson interview, 1965, TIA; Cleveland Times, July 29, 1925, August 28, 1925; Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 28, 1925; Samuel Mather to Guy Emerson, n.d., 1925, TIA.

  28. Interview with Lila Luce Tyng; “The Move to Cleveland,” memo, n.d., TIA; Larsen memoir, August 1956, TIA.

  29. “Time Likes Cleveland,” Clevelander, June 1926, clipping in TIA.

  30. Cleveland Plain Dealer, n.d., 1926, Cleveland Press, n.d., 1926, clippings in TIA; “Time Quiz: Questions and Answers,” Dayton, Ohio, April 20, 1926, LT; New York World, March 18, 1927; HRL Elson interview, 1965, TIA.

  31. Time Inc. Treasurer’s Report, January 2, 1926, “General Report to the Board of Directors of Time Inc.,” April 1, 1926, Time Inc., President’s Report, January 1, 1927, BH to Larsen, March, n.d., 1927, Larsen Mss.; Larsen, “First Estimate 1927 Budget,” “The Move to Cleveland,” memo, n.d., HRL Elson interview, 1965, TIA; Elson, Time Inc., p. 97.

  32. HRL to LH, BH to Harry Davison, July 11, 1957, Larsen memoir, 1956, TIA; HRL Elson interview, 1965, TIA.

  33. “Treasurer’s Report,” January 31, 1928, “Facts for Directors,” April 8, 1929, TIA.

  34. President’s Report, February 24, 1927, TIA.

  35. Noel F. Busch, Briton Hadden: A Biography of the Co-Founder of Time (New York: Farrar Straus, 1949), pp. 134–38, 180–81; HRL Elson interview, 1966, TIA; “Copyright Protection,” editorial in The Chicago Tribune, n.d., 1929, TIA.

  36. Staff rosters, 1923, 1924, 1927, 1929, TIA; T. S. Matthews, Name and Address: An Autobiography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960), p. 221.

  37. Subscription circular, n.d., 1926, TIA.

  38. Time, August 3, 1925, August 25, 1930, March 2, 1931; John S. Martin, “Briton Hadden as Editor and Co-Founder of Time,” speech, New Haven, April 27, 1932, TIA.

  39. Time, August 10, 1925, October 6, 1924, August 25, 1930; BH memo, n.d., TIA; Robert Withington, “Some New ‘Portmanteau’ Words,” Philological Quarterly 9 (April 1930): 158–64; BH memo, n.d., TIA; Busch, Briton Hadden, p. 114.

  40. Time, July 23, May 17, 28, 1923, October 27, 1930, April 6, 1931; Busch, Briton Hadden, p. 144.

  41. Matthews, Name and Address, pp. 217–18, 221; Busch, Briton Hadden, p. 133.

  42. Joseph J. Firebaugh, “The Vocabulary of Time Magazine,” American Speech, October 1940, pp. 232–42; Busch, Briton Hadden, pp. 110–13; “The Index of Time,” November 1932, Hotchkiss School Archives; “The Log Takes a Lot of Time,” U.S. Naval Academy, March 23, 1928, “Columns,” University of Washington, February 1931, R. T. Johnson to HRL, May 5, 1934; “Time: But Not the Weekly Newsmagazine,” White Company, May 1934, Rochester Times-Union, March 27, 1929, Edmonton Journal, n.d., TIA; ERL to HRL, September 10, 1926, LT.

  43. HRL Elson interview, 1965, TIA; HRL speech in Rochester, NY, n.d., 1928, LT; Democratic National Committee receipt, October 29, 1928, LT; Time advertisement in Christian Century, November 13, 1924, TIA.

  44. Time, February 4, 1929.

  45. Time, March 3, 1923.

  46. Dwight Macdonald, “‘Time’ and Henry Luce,” Nation, May 1, 1937, p. 502; Covering History: TIME Magazine Covers, 1923–1997 (New York: Time Inc., 1998); Frederick S. Voss, Faces of Time: 75 Years of Time Magazine Cover Portraits (New York: Little, Brown, 1998), pp. 12–16 and passim.

  47. Time, September 14, 1925, March 2, 10, 1923, May 23, 1927.

  48. Time, March 24, April 21, August 6, 1923, January 14, 1924, August 10, 1925, October 12, 1931; Richard Washburn Child, “Making of Mussolini,” Saturday Evening Post, June 28, 1924; Child, “What Does Mussolini Mean,” Saturday Evening Post, July 26, 1924; Child, “Mussolini Now,” Saturday Evening Post, March 24, 1928; David Nasaw, The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2000), pp. 323, 355–56, 380, 470–74; John Patrick Diggins, Mussolini and Fascism: The View from America (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1972), pp. 26–28, 42–57.

  49. Time, December 10, 1923, June 9, 1930; Swanberg, Luce and His Empire, pp. 76–78.

  50. Goldsborough to HRL, n.d., 1929, TIA.

  51. Time, March 9, 1936; HRL Elson interviews, 1957, 1965, TIA; Swanberg, Luce and His Empire, pp. 129–30.

  52. Busch, Briton Hadden, pp. 192–93; HRL Elson interview, 1966, TIA; Time, March 3, 1927.

  53. Time, March 5, April 28, 1923, March 10, 1924, June 1, 1925, May 24, 1926, June 30, 1930.

  54. HRL Elson interview, 1965, TIA.

  55. Advertising flier, 1925, TIA.

  56. Joan Shelly Rubin, “‘Information, Please!’ Culture and Expertise in the Interwar Period,” American Quarterly 35 (1983): 499–517.

  57. Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt (1922; repr., New York: Signet, 1950), p. 152; “A Tour Through Time Colony,” advertising pamphlet, 1927, Time circulation map, 1924, Time advertisting circular, 1927, TIA.

  58. Copy for Time circular, n.d., TIA; “This Class-Ridden Democracy,” advertising pamphlet, 1928, TIA; “Success comes mysteriously …,” advertising pamphlet, 1929, TIA.

  59. Elson, Time Inc., p. 82; Time internal newsletter, January 7, 1929, “A Tour Through Time Colony,” advertising pamphlet, 1928, TIA.

  60. Busch, Briton Hadden, pp. 215–16; HRL to Lila, March, n.d., 1923, Lilian Rixey to Noel Busch, June 28, 1948, TIA.

  61. HRL Elson interview, 1965, TIA.

  62. Tide: Dedicated to the Flow of Business, April 1927, E. D. Kennedy to David Edwin Sanders, October 29, 1928, E. Robin Little memo, April 7, 1953, Lilian Rixey to Noel Busch, October 4, 1948, HRL Elson interview, 1957, Hadden diary, Hadden Mss., TIA.

  63. HRL memo to staff, March 15, 1928, TIA; Gottfried oral history, TIA; Lila Luce Tyng interview.

  64. “Hadden illness & death,” Time memo, May 5, 1965, HRL Elson interview, 1965, Lilian Rixey to Noel Busch, June 28, 1948, BH to Harry Davison, October 26, 1926, TIA; Lila Luce Tyng interview.

  65. Walter Buell to HRL, June 28, 1926, TIA; Lila Luce Tyng interview.

  66. HRL to LH, n.d., 1927, LT; Lila Luce Tyng interview.

  67. “Hadden Illness & Death,” Time memo, May 5, 1965, TIA.

  68. Ibid; “Bulletin on Mr. Hadden,” January 30, 1929, February 5, 1929, TIA; Gottfried oral history, TIA.

  69. Gottfried oral history, HRL to Daniel Winter, January 19, 1929, Lilian Rixey to Noel Busch, June 28, 1948, TIA.

  70. Time, March 11, 18, 1929.

  VI EMPIRE BUILDING

  1. Lila Luce Tyng, Elisabeth Luce Moore interviews; HRL to HWL, n.d., 1929, HRL to Board of Directors, May 1929, TIA.

  2. Hadden will, Hadden Mss., TIA; Brooklyn Eagle, March 8, 1929; Howard V. Luce to HRL, February 28, 1929, TIA.

  3. HRL to Roy Larsen, September 3, 1929, Charles Stillman to Harry P. Davison, September 3, 1929, “Time Inc. Stock,” memo, November 15, 1967, Robert Elson to Jim Linen, April 19, 1966, “Employees’ Stock Purchase Plan,” October 14, 1929, HRL to Da
vison, September 3, 1929, HRL to Board of Directors, September 4, 1929, TIA.

  4. “Financial Prospectus and Plan of Operations,” n.d., 1930, HRL Elson interview, 1965, HRL to Roy Larsen, n.d., 1928, HRL to Harry P. Davison, February 7, May 24, 1929, “Special Report to the Board of Directors,” February 1929, “Report of the Experimental Department,” May 24, 1929, HRL to Davison, May 24, 1929, TIA.

  5. “Preface to Fortune,” 1929, form letter, October 21, 1929, TIA.

  6. World’s Work, January 1929.

  7. Eric Hodgins oral history, 1968, p. 49, COHP.

  8. “The American Tycoon,” HRL speech, March 27, 1929, TIA; Louis Galambos, The Public Image of Big Business in America, 1880–1940: A Quantitative Study in Social Change (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), pp. 191–21.

  9. “The American Tycoon,” HRL speech, March 27, 1929, TIA; Eric Hodgins oral history, 1968, p. 49, COHP; John K. Jessup, ed., The Ideas of Henry Luce (New York: Atheneum, 1969), pp. 221, 223–24, 385–86; James L. Baughman, Henry R. Luce and the Rise of the American News Media (Boston: Twayne, 1987), p. 64; Galambos, The Public Image of Big Business in America, pp. 222–49.

  10. Lila Luce Tyng interview; HRL Elson interview, 1965, TIA.

  11. HRL to Board of Directors, May 24, 1929, HRL, “Prospectus for a Monthly Magazine,” draft, n.d., 1929, TIA; Announcement of Fortune (advertisement), New York Times, January 24, 1930 (“The First Number of the Most Beautiful Magazine in America”), “Preface to Fortune,” 1930, TIA; Brooklyn Eagle, October 6, 1930; Robert T. Elson, Time Inc.: The Intimate History of a Publishing Enterprise, 1923–1941 (New York: Atheneum, 1968), pp. 140–41; Milton St. John, “True Stories de Luxe,” Nation, March 4, 1931, p. 239; John Huey, Daniel Okrent, Fortune: The Art of Covering Business (Layton, Utah: Gibbs, Smith, 1999).

  12. HRL, “Topics for Fortune,” n.d., HRL notes on Fortune, untitled, n.d., “Preface to Fortune,” 1930, HRL, “Prospectus for a Monthly Magazine,” draft, n.d., 1929, TIA.

  13. “Preface to Fortune,” 1930, “Announcing Fortune,” form letters to subscribers, July 8, October 21, 1929, “Directive for the Editorial Development of FORTUNE,” n.d., 1947, TIA.

  14. C. L. Stillman to Roy Larsen, “April Results,” May 20, 1930, Stillman to HRL, Larsen, June 9, 1929, Larsen to Johnson, August 8, 1930, HRL to Board of Directors, May 24, 1929, TIA; Elson, Time Inc., p. 141.

  15. Scott Donaldson, Archibald MacLeish: An American Life (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992), pp. 209–10.

  16. HRL to Board of Directors, May 24, 1929, TIA; HRL to MBW, May 8, 1929, Parker Lloyd-Smith to MBW, May 22, June 10, 1929, MBW to Parker Lloyd-Smith, June 16, 1929, Box 49, MBW Mss.; Elson, Time Inc., pp. 135–36; Vicki Goldberg, Margaret Bourke-White: A Biography (New York: Harper & Row, 1986), pp. 79–100, 105; John R. Stomberg, “Art and Fortune: Machine-Age Discourse and the Visual Culture of Industrial Modernity” (Ph.D. diss., Boston University, 1999), p. 117.

  17. Tom Durrance to “Fill,” December 9, 1944, Box 50, MBW Mss.; New York Mirror, September 22, 1930; Goldberg, Margaret Bourke-White, pp. 101–12.

  18. Fortune, February 1930; Stephen Bennett Phillips, Margaret Bourke-White: The Photography of Design, 1927–1936 (New York: Rizzoli, 2005), pp. 18–53; Susan Goldman Rubin, Margaret Bourke-White (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1999), pp. 22–47; Ronald E. Osman and Harry Littell, Margaret Bourke-White: The Early Work, 1922–1930 (Boston: Godine Paragon, 2005), pp. xxvii–xxxvi, 83–88.

  19. Fortune, February 1930; Upton Sinclair, The Jungle (1906; repr., New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2003), pp. 102–3, 140–41.

  20. Fortune, December 1930, July 1930, May 1933, March 1931, August 1931; Terry Smith, Making the Modern: Industry, Art, and Design in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), pp. 159–98; Stomberg, “Art and Fortune,” pp. 125–48; Michael Augspurger, An Economy of Abundant Beauty: Fortune Magazine & Depression America (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2004), pp. 80–85.

  21. Fortune, March 1930.

  22. HRL, “Aristocracy and Motives,” 1930 speech, TIA; Fortune, September 1932.

  23. Fortune, May 1930, April 1930, September 1930, January 1931; Augspurger, An Economy of Abundant Beauty, p. 35; Alfred Chandler, Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of the Industrial Enterprise (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1962), pp. 114–62.

  24. Milton St. John, “True Stories de Luxe,” pp. 239–40; HRL memo to editors, May 18, 1944, HRL Elson interview, 1966, TIA.

  25. HRL, “To members of FORTUNE’s Research Staff,” April 13, 1933, Ingersoll to HRL, April 26, 1933, TIA; Ingersoll to Fortune Researchers, April 27, 1933, HRL to Ingersoll, January, n.d., 1933, January 9, 1933, HRL to Archibald MacLeish, n.d., 1930, TIA; Ingersoll, “Answers to Time Inc. Questions,” March 28, 1956, Ingersoll Mss.; Archibald MacLeish, “The First Nine Years,” Writing for Fortune (New York: Time Inc., 1980), p. 8; Galambos, The Public Image of Big Business in America, pp. 246–49.

  26. Robert Coughlan, “A Collection of Characters,” in Writing for Fortune, p. 74; John Chamberlain, “How I Really Learned About Business,” in ibid., p. 28; Dwight Macdonald, “Against the Grain,” in ibid., p. 150; Michael Wreszin, A Rebel in Defense of Tradition: The Life and Politics of Dwight Macdonald (New York: Basic Books, 1994), pp. 22–23; Laurence Bergreen, James Agee: A Life (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1984), pp. 106–8; Roy Hoopes, Ralph Ingersoll: A Biography (New York: Atheneum, 1985), pp. 93–97.

  27. Donaldson, Archibald MacLeish, pp. 242–44; Hoopes, Ralph Ingersoll, p. 97; Charles J. V. Murphy, “I Wish My Fortune Years Were Just Beginning,” in Writing for Fortune, pp. 40–43; Fortune, September 1933; Ingersoll to HRL, March 7, 1934, TIA; Fortune, March, May, June, July 1934, February 1936, September 1934.

  28. Fortune, July, October 1934.

  29. Macdonald to Dinsmore Wheeler, March 8, 1935, Macdonald to Nicholas Macdonald, September 25, 1963, TIA; Michael Wreszin, ed., A Moral Temper: The Letters of Dwight Macdonald (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2001), pp. 52, 352; Wreszin, A Rebel in Defense of Tradition, pp. 47–53; Bergreen, James Agee, pp. 158–77, 244–45, 257–61; William Stott, Documentary Expression and Depression America (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1973, 1986), pp. 259–314.

  30. Macdonald to Nancy Rodman, July 20, 1934, TIA; Wreszin, A Moral Temper, p. 49; Fortune, June 1936; HRL Elson interview, 1965, TIA; Dwight Macdonald, “‘Fortune’ Magazine,” Nation, May 8, 1937, pp. 529–30.

  31. Macdonald to HRL, n.d., 1936, TIA; Wreszin, A Moral Temper, pp. 67–71; HRL to Ingersoll, April 29, 1933, HRL to Alexander Legge, May 31, 1933, HRL to MacLeish, July 27, 1933, HRL to staff, May 13, 1937, MacLeish to HRL, May 5, 1937, July 18, 1938, Russell Davenport to HRL, February 14, 1951, TIA; Fortune, April 1934, December 1935; HRL Elson interview, 1965, TIA.

  32. HRL to Louis Howe, Sept. 15, 1933, HRL to Stephen Early, September 22, 1933, Stephen Early to HRL, Sept. 21, 1933, MacLeish to HRL, n.d., 1937, Hodgins to HRL, November 11, 1936, HRL to Hodgins, November 11, 1936, January 21, 1937, TIA; Elson, Time Inc., pp. 250, 261–64; HRL, “Respectus,” May 10, 1937, HRL to staff, May 13, 1937, TIA.

  33. John K. Jessup, “Comments (At Random) on the ‘Respectus,’” n.d., 1937, E. D. Kennedy, “Decline of Fortune,” November 29, 1937, Davenport to HRL, February 14, 1951, Research staff to Davenport, April 7, 1938, TIA.

  34. Fortune, October 1936; HRL speech, “Calculability of Abundance,” November 10, 1937, TIA.

  35. HRL speech, Rochester, New York, March 1928, HRL speech, Scranton, Pennsylvania, April 19, 1934, TIA; Jessup, The Ideas of Henry Luce, pp. 219, 224–26.

  36. Fortune, February, June 1938, February 1939; Joseph Thorndike, “The Liberal and Salutary Path: Fortune Magazine and the Search for a Business Liberalism” (thesis, University of Virginia, 1993), pp. 48–60.

  37. Fortune, March 1939, March 1940.

  VII “TIME MARCHES ON”

  1. HRL, “General Memorandum,” September 3, 1931, “Time Incorporated: Who’s Who and Where,” internal office map, n.d., TIA;
JSBD, August 3, 1931; HRL Elson interview, 1966, TIA.

  2. HRL to HWL, May 7, 1932, HRL to ERL, n.d., 1932, LT; JSBD, April 22, 1932.

  3. Leslie Severinghaus interview.

  4. HRL to LH, n.d., 1932, May 12, 1932, HRL to Henry, May 19, 1932, LT; Victoria Colonist, May 9, 1932; Severinghaus journal, pp. 1–12, TIA.

  5. HRL to LH, May 27, 1932, LT.

  6. HRL to HWL, May 7, n.d., 1932, Severinghaus journal, pp. 12–26, TIA; Leslie Severinghaus interview; Eugene Barnett to Edward Haag, June 1, 1932, Courtland Van Deusen to HRL, May 30, 1932, Nelson Johnson to HRL, June 14, 1932, LT.

  7. HRL to LH, June n.d., 1932, Severinghaus journal, pp. 26–31, TIA; W. A. Swanberg, Luce and His Empire (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1972), p. 98.

  8. HRL to HWL, May 7, 1932, HRL to LH, June 10, 1932, Severinghaus journal, p. 16, TIA; Leslie Severinghaus interview; Mme. Wellington Koo with Isabella Taves, No Feast Lasts Forever (New York: Quadrangle Books, 1975), p. 189; Sterling Seagrave, The Soong Dynasty (New York: Harper & Row, 1985), pp. 311–13.

  9. Seagrave, The Soong Dynasty, pp. 307–8.

  10. HRL, “Notes on U.S.S.R.,” August 1932, Severinghaus journal, pp. 33–45, TIA; Leslie Severinghaus interview.

  11. HRL memo to Time Editors, n.d., 1933 (“Salaries”), JSB Mss.

  12. JSBD, May 15, 1930, May 1, 1931, January 28, October 14, 31, 1932, June 17, 1933; Robert T. Elson, Time Inc.: The Intimate History of a Publishing Enterprise, 1923–1941 (New York: Atheneum, 1968), pp. 158–59.

  13. JSBD, January 14, February 18, March 24, November 11, 1932, January 15, April 16, September 28, November 16, 24, 1933, March 22, 1934; HRL Elson interview, 1965, TIA.

  14. Skyline dummy, 1931, TIA; Architectural Forum, June 1937; JSBD, March 3, 1932; HRL to MBW, May 10, 1932, Box 49, MBW Mss.; Robert T. Elson, The World of Time Inc.: The Intimate History of a Publishing Enterprise, 1941–1960 (New York: Atheneum, 1973), pp. 186–94; Elson, Time Inc., pp. 322–24.

  15. JSBD, September 23, 1935, April 3, 1936; Letters, 1934–1937, TIA; Elson, Time Inc., pp. 204–5.

  16. Larsen to Richard Krolik, March 10, 1970, Larsen Mss., TIA; Editor and Publisher, November 3, 1928; David Alan Campbell, “The Origin and Early Developments of the Time Incorporated Radio Series the March of Time” (M.A. thesis, Central Missouri State College, 1969), pp. 26–41; Frank C. Tucker III, “A Critical Evaluation of the March of Time, 1931–1932” (M.A. thesis, Central Missouri State College, 1969), pp. 6–12.