Harold Ross

Harold Wallace Ross (November 6, 1892 – December 6, 1951) 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.

Early life Born in a prospector's cabin in Aspen, Colorado, Ross was the son of Scots-Irish immigrant miner George Ross and schoolteacher Ida Ross.

Ross was an original member of the Algonquin Round Table. He used his contacts in "The Vicious Circle" to help get The New Yorker started. Ross, said by Alexander Woollcott to resemble "a dishonest Abe Lincoln", attracted talent to his new publishing venture, ultimately featuring writers such as Woollcott, James Thurber, E. B. White, John McNulty, Joseph Mitchell, Katharine S. White, S. J. Perelman, Janet Flanner, Wolcott Gibbs, St. Clair McKelway, John O'Hara, Robert Benchley, Dorothy Parker, Vladimir Nabokov, Sally Benson, A. J. Liebling, and J. D. Salinger. Ross designated Shawn as his preferred successor, which Fleischmann confirmed after Ross died.

James Thurber quotes the reminiscences of many colleagues of both men in his 1959 memoir, The Years with 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. Ross and his magazine slowly became famous among literati and newspapermen. Thurber quoted John Duncan Miller, the Washington, D.C., correspondent for The Times of London, after meeting Ross in 1938:During the first half hour, I felt that Ross was the last man in the world who could edit the New Yorker. I left there realizing that nobody else in the world could. He kept up a voluminous correspondence, which is preserved at the New York Public Library.

Personal life Ross married Jane Grant in 1920 but they divorced in 1929.

Death Ross died of heart failure in Boston, Massachusetts on December 6, 1951, during an operation to remove a lung after it was discovered his bronchial carcinoma had metastasized.