1. Harold Wallace Ross was an American journalist who co-founded The New Yorker magazine in 1925 with his wife Jane Grant, and was its editor-in-chief until his death.
15 Facts About Harold Ross
1. 2.
Harold Ross dropped out of school at 13 and ran away to his uncle in Denver, where he worked for The Denver Post.
3.
Harold Ross claimed to have walked 150 miles from officer's training school at Langres, France to reach Paris to write for Stars and Stripes, where he met Alexander Woollcott, Cyrus Baldridge, Franklin Pierce Adams, and Jane Grant, who would become his first wife and helped back The New Yorker.
4.
Harold Ross spent a few months at Judge, a humor magazine.
5.
Harold Ross envisioned a new journal of metropolitan sensibilities and a sophisticated tone.
6.
Harold Ross was an original member of the Algonquin Round Table.
7.
Harold Ross used his contacts in "The Vicious Circle" to help get The New Yorker started.
8.
An irritated Harold Ross, who saw his magazine as an underdog competing against the larger powerhouses, relented into allowing a reprint of the story in the Reader's Digest.
9.
Harold Ross worked long hours and ruined all three of his marriages as a result.
10.
Harold Ross was a careful and conscientious editor who strove to keep his copy clear and concise.
11.
Quite aware of his limited education, Harold Ross treated Fowler's Modern English Usage as his Bible.
12.
Harold Ross designated Shawn as his preferred successor, which Fleischmann confirmed after Harold Ross died.
13.
James Thurber quotes the reminiscences of many colleagues of both men in his 1959 memoir, The Years with Harold Ross, citing his former chief's pranks, temper, profanity, anti-intellectualism, drive, perfectionism, and an almost permanent social discomfort, and how these all shaped The New Yorker staff.
14.
Harold Ross kept up a voluminous correspondence, which is preserved at the New York Public Library.
15.
Harold Ross died of heart failure in Boston, Massachusetts in December 1951, during an operation to remove a lung after it was discovered his bronchial carcinoma had metastasized.