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Henry Luce
Henry Robinson Luce (April 3, 1898 – February 28, 1967) was an American magazine publisher who founded Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated. He built one of the first multimedia corporations, combining print, radio, and newsreels, and promoted the idea of the "American Century", envisioning the United States as a global leader.
Luce was born in Tengchow, Shandong, China, now Penglai, on April 3, 1898, the son of Elizabeth Root Luce and Henry Winters Luce, who was a Presbyterian missionary.
At 15, he was sent to the U.S. to attend the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut, where he tried hard to overcome his stuttering. As a scholarship student he was isolated from the upper-class boys. He was subsidized by an elderly Chicago heiress, Nancy Fowler McCormick, who favored sons of missionaries. Applying himself to study, Luce quickly became the top student. He was especially strong in languages, studying Greek, Latin, French, and German, and already knowing Chinese. He edited the Hotchkiss Literary Monthly. There, he first met Briton Hadden; they became best friends.
Hotchkiss was a feeder prep school for Yale University. After a summer spent working on a Springfield newspaper, Luce matriculated in the fall of 1916. He was the top freshman academically, but grades did not confer as much prestige as a staff role on the Yale Daily News. Only four freshmen were chosen by the News; they included Luce and Hadden. When the U.S. entered World War I in 1917, a third of the students joined the army; the rest, including Luce, joined the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) and attended class in uniform.
Luce also joined Alpha Delta Phi, a minor fraternity. His grades remained top-level, and every spare hour was devoted to newspaper work. Luce and Hadden were the two outstanding journalists; when the vote came in January 1918 for chairmanship of the News, Hadden beat Luce by one vote. Luce instead became managing editor and the two worked closely together and started planning their future. Meanwhile, the Army assigned them as ROTC leaders to train new recruits. The war ended before either was commissioned.
In January 1919, Luce and Hadden returned to Yale University as juniors. In May 1919, they were both tapped into the prestigious Skull and Bones secret society. Luce tried, but failed, to win a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford, but he was admitted to the university and paid his way. He spent the year travelling Europe, observing the post-World War I scene closely. He returned to the United States to take a newspaper job in Chicago as a junior reporter.
Nightly discussions of the concept of a news magazine led Luce and Hadden, both age 23, to quit their jobs in 1922. Later that same year, they partnered with Robert Livingston Johnson and another Yale classmate to form Time Inc.
Luce, who remained editor-in-chief of all his publications until 1964, was also an influential figure in the Republican Party. Supported by editor-in-chief T. S. Matthews, he appointed Whittaker Chambers as acting Foreign News editor in 1944, despite Chambers' well-known feuds with reporters in the field. In 1941, he authored an editorial for Life titled "The American Century", in which he articulated his vision for the role of U.S. foreign policy for the remainder of the 20th century.
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Henry Luce
Henry Robinson Luce (April 3, 1898 – February 28, 1967) was an American magazine publisher who founded Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated. He built one of the first multimedia corporations, combining print, radio, and newsreels, and promoted the idea of the "American Century", envisioning the United States as a global leader.
Luce was born in Tengchow, Shandong, China, now Penglai, on April 3, 1898, the son of Elizabeth Root Luce and Henry Winters Luce, who was a Presbyterian missionary.
At 15, he was sent to the U.S. to attend the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut, where he tried hard to overcome his stuttering. As a scholarship student he was isolated from the upper-class boys. He was subsidized by an elderly Chicago heiress, Nancy Fowler McCormick, who favored sons of missionaries. Applying himself to study, Luce quickly became the top student. He was especially strong in languages, studying Greek, Latin, French, and German, and already knowing Chinese. He edited the Hotchkiss Literary Monthly. There, he first met Briton Hadden; they became best friends.
Hotchkiss was a feeder prep school for Yale University. After a summer spent working on a Springfield newspaper, Luce matriculated in the fall of 1916. He was the top freshman academically, but grades did not confer as much prestige as a staff role on the Yale Daily News. Only four freshmen were chosen by the News; they included Luce and Hadden. When the U.S. entered World War I in 1917, a third of the students joined the army; the rest, including Luce, joined the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) and attended class in uniform.
Luce also joined Alpha Delta Phi, a minor fraternity. His grades remained top-level, and every spare hour was devoted to newspaper work. Luce and Hadden were the two outstanding journalists; when the vote came in January 1918 for chairmanship of the News, Hadden beat Luce by one vote. Luce instead became managing editor and the two worked closely together and started planning their future. Meanwhile, the Army assigned them as ROTC leaders to train new recruits. The war ended before either was commissioned.
In January 1919, Luce and Hadden returned to Yale University as juniors. In May 1919, they were both tapped into the prestigious Skull and Bones secret society. Luce tried, but failed, to win a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford, but he was admitted to the university and paid his way. He spent the year travelling Europe, observing the post-World War I scene closely. He returned to the United States to take a newspaper job in Chicago as a junior reporter.
Nightly discussions of the concept of a news magazine led Luce and Hadden, both age 23, to quit their jobs in 1922. Later that same year, they partnered with Robert Livingston Johnson and another Yale classmate to form Time Inc.
Luce, who remained editor-in-chief of all his publications until 1964, was also an influential figure in the Republican Party. Supported by editor-in-chief T. S. Matthews, he appointed Whittaker Chambers as acting Foreign News editor in 1944, despite Chambers' well-known feuds with reporters in the field. In 1941, he authored an editorial for Life titled "The American Century", in which he articulated his vision for the role of U.S. foreign policy for the remainder of the 20th century.
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