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Adolph Ochs
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| Biography: Adolph Simon Ochs |
The American publisher and philanthropist Adolph Simon Ochs (1858-1935) rose from a cultured but impoverished background to control the so-called ideal newspaper, the New York Times.
Adolph Ochs was born March 2, 1858, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Of German-Jewish stock, he had talent and industry and a disposition that made both productive. He was the eldest of six children and had only a brief exposure to school. However, his father, a teacher fluent in six languages, tutored the boy.
Ochs always referred to the printing office as his high school and college. At the age of 11 he started at the Knoxville Chronicleas office boy, and at 13 he became an apprentice. In 1877 Ochs joined in a fruitless effort to establish the Chattanooga Dispatch. The owner of the Chattanooga Times, victor over the Dispatch, was in difficulty and offered to sell to Ochs, then not old enough to vote. On July 2, 1878, with $37.50 working capital, Ochs became a publisher upon handing over $250, which he had borrowed, and assuming $1,500 in debts. He showed a profit the first year. In 1892 Ochs built the Chattanooga Times Building, an outstanding addition to the developing city.
In 1896 Ochs acquired control of the New York Times. He mortgaged and risked everything to "conduct a high standard newspaper, clean, dignified and trustworthy." The New York Times followed the slogan "All the News That's Fit to Print." From 1896 to 1935 he raised the daily circulation enormously. Ochs started the Sunday book supplement within 10 years after taking over. In 1913 he began publishing the New York Times Index. In 1925 Ochs started advancing $50,000 annually for 10 years toward the cost of producing the Dictionary of American Biography. He established Current History magazine in 1914.
Ochs did not use his papers to express his personality. He "depersonalized" editorship and thought of the New York Times as a public institution. His last active year was 1932; he died April 8, 1935. He had set an example of how to conduct a free and responsible press. According to a biographer, Ochs at times failed because he had been deceived or misinformed "but he never lied …, the final test of a servant of the truth." He had received honorary degrees from six institutions.
Further Reading
Books about Ochs praise him but show little of his personality. Gerald W. Johnson, Honorable Titan: A Biographical Study of Adolph S. Ochs (1946), gives Ochs a glow of glory without humanizing him. Frank Luther Mott, American Journalism: A History of Newspapers in the United States through 260 Years, 1690-1950 (1950), rather stingily gives Ochs his just due, diminishing the halo only slightly. Other helpful works are Elmer Davis, History of the New York Times (1921), Meyer Berger, Story of the New York Times, 1851-1951 (1951); and Gay Talese, The Kingdom and the Power (1969).
| Spotlight: Adolph Ochs |
From our Archives: Today's Highlights, August 18, 2006
It was on this date in 1896 that publisher Adolph Ochs took over the failing New York Times and began to build it into one of the world's leading newspapers. When he acquired the NY Times, the paper had a readership of less than 10,000. Ochs' practice of reporting the news objectively, coupled with reducing the price to a penny, worked to drastically increase readership. In 1904, Times Square was renamed for the newspaper which had just moved its headquarters to 42nd St.
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Adolph S. Ochs |
Ochs, Adolph S. (ŏks), 1858-1935, American newspaper publisher, b. Cincinnati. Starting as a newsboy in Knoxville, Tenn., he became a printer's apprentice, compositor, and, in 1878, publisher of the Chattanooga Times. In 1896 he acquired the then failing New York Times and made it one of the greatest newspapers in the world. He also controlled the Philadelphia Times and the Philadelphia Public Ledger, which he merged and in 1913 sold to Cyrus H. K. Curtis. Unlike the sensational journalists of his day, Ochs stressed nonpartisan, almost clinical news reporting. From 1900 until his death he was a member of the executive committee and a director of the Associated Press.
Bibliography
See G. W. Johnson, An Honorable Titan (1946, repr. 1970); S. Tift and A. Jones, The Trust (1999).
| Wikipedia: Adolph Ochs |
Adolph Simon Ochs (b. March 12, 1858–April 8, 1935) was an American newspaper publisher and former owner of The New York Times and The Chattanooga Times (now the Chattanooga Times Free Press).
Contents |
Early life and career
Ochs was born to German-Jewish immigrants, Julius and Bertha Levy Ochs, in Cincinnati, Ohio. The family moved south to Knoxville, Tennessee, due to his mother's sympathies during the Civil War. Julius sided with the Union during the war, but it didn't separate the household. Ochs began his newspaper career there at age 11, leaving grammar school to become an apprentice typesetter, known in that era as a "printer's devil". He worked at the Knoxville Chronicle under Captain William Rule, the editor who became his mentor. His siblings also worked at the newspaper to supplement the income of their father, a lay rabbi for Knoxville's small Jewish community. The Knoxville Chronicle was the only Republican, pro-Reconstruction, newspaper in the city, but Ochs counted Father Ryan, the Poet-Priest of the Confederacy, among his customers.[1]
Chattanooga Times and New York Times
At the age of 19, he borrowed $250 to purchase a controlling interest in The Chattanooga Times, becoming its publisher. In 1896, at the age of 38, he again borrowed money to purchase The New York Times, a money-losing newspaper that had a wide range of competitors in New York City. In 1904, he hired Carr Van Anda as his managing editor. Their focus on objective news reporting, in a time when newspapers were openly and highly partisan, and a well-timed price decrease (from 3 cents per issue to 1 cent) led to its rescue from near oblivion. The paper's readership increased from 9,000 at the time of his purchase to 780,000 by the 1920s.
In 1904, Ochs moved the New York Times to a newly-built building on Longacre Square in Manhattan, which the City of New York then renamed as Times Square. On New Year's Eve 1904, he had pyrotechnists illuminate his new building at One Times Square with a fireworks show from street level.
Family and religious activities
In 1884, Ochs married Effie Wise, the daughter of Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise of Cincinnati, who was the leading exponent of Reform Judaism in America and the founder of Hebrew Union College.
In 1928 Ochs built the Mizpah Congregation Temple in Chattanooga in memory of his parents, Julius and Bertha Ochs.[2] The Georgian colonial building was designated as a Tennessee Historical Preservation Site in 1979.[3]
Ochs was engaged in crusading against anti-Semitism. He was active in the early years of the Anti-Defamation League, serving as an executive board member, and using his influence as publisher of the New York Times to convince other newspapers nationwide to cease the unjustified caricaturing and lampooning of Jews in the American press.
Death and legacy
Ochs died April 8, 1935 during a visit to Chattanooga.[4]
His only daughter, Iphigene Bertha Ochs, married Arthur Hays Sulzberger, who became publisher of the Times after Adolph died. Her son-in-law Orvil Dryfoos was publisher from 1961–63, followed by her son Arthur Ochs "Punch" Sulzberger. Her daughter, Ruth Holmberg, became publisher of The Chattanooga Times. Ruth Holmberg's son is Arthur Golden, author of Memoir of a Geisha. Ochs' great-grandson Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. has been publisher of The New York Times since 1992.
One of his nephews, Julius Ochs Adler, worked at the New York Times for more than 40 years, becoming general manager in 1935, after Ochs died. Another nephew, John Bertram Oakes, the son of his brother George Washington Ochs Oakes, became editorial page editor of the Times' editorial page in 1961, which he edited until 1976.
Mr. Ochs was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1982.
References
- ^ Neely, Jack. Knoxville's Secret History. Scruffy City Publishing, 1995.
- ^ Chattanooga By Elena Irish Zimmerman, Arcadia Publishing, 1998p. 49
- ^ http://www.mizpahcongregation.org/aboutus/history/
- ^ http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/imagegallery.php?EntryID=O008
Further reading
- The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family behind The New York Times, Susan E. Tifft and Alex S. Jones, Little, Brown and Company, 1999.
- History of the ADL: http://www.adl.org/ADLHistory/1913_1920.asp
External links
- Obituary, NY Times, April 9, 1935, Adolph S. Ochs Dead at 77; Publisher of Times Since 1896
- Jewish Virtual Library - Adolph Ochs
- Tennessee Encyclopedia article
- Article in FAIR by John L. Hess assessing career
| Awards and achievements | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Edith Cummings |
Cover of Time Magazine 1 September 1924 |
Succeeded by Wu Pei-fu |
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August 18, 2006
All the news that's fit to print.
- Adolph Ochs, motto of the NY Times
