Arthur Hays Sulzberger
Arthur Hays Sulzberger was an influential American newspaper publisher, best known for his leadership of *The New York Times* from 1935 until his death in 1968. He was born into a Jewish family with a rich heritage, including Sephardic ancestry, which instilled in him a sense of pride. After marrying Iphigene Ochs, the daughter of then-publisher Adolph Ochs, Sulzberger began working at the newspaper, gradually earning respect and a significant role in its operations. Under his stewardship, *The New York Times* embraced modern technology, notably introducing photographs into the printed newspaper and establishing photo sections.
Sulzberger's tenure was marked by a commitment to social issues, as he appointed the first female foreign affairs editorial commentator and hired the first African American reporter for the paper. However, his legacy is complex, as he faced criticism for how the newspaper covered the Holocaust and his anti-Zionist views, which conflicted with his Jewish identity. Throughout World War II, Sulzberger actively sought to rally public support for democracy and was involved in various humanitarian efforts. He began to pass on publishing responsibilities to his son, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, before his death at the age of 77.
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Subject Terms
Arthur Hays Sulzberger
Business executive, journalist, and publisher of The New York Times
- Born: September 12, 1891
- Birthplace: New York, New York
- Died: December 11, 1968
- Place of death: New York, New York
The second in a newspaper dynasty, Arthur Hays Sulzberger was the publisher of The New York Times, unmatched in journalistic quality and importance, for more than a quarter of a century. During his tenure, he took steps to modernize the style of the paper to fit the tastes of a new audience.
Early Life
Arthur Hays Sulzberger (SUHLZ-bur-gur) was born to Cyrus L. Sulzberger and Rachel Hays. Their fourth child, Sulzberger attended Horace Mann School and Columbia University. Sulzberger’s father was a successful social climber and became president of the law firm Erlanger, Blumgart, and Company. In the wake of deadly pogroms, during which Jews were viciously attacked by government forces, Cyrus became a Zionist (a supporter of a state for Jews) and the vice president of the American Federation of Zionists in 1903. Always concerned with public duty, Cyrus held many charitable posts, and he was involved with industrial aid and finding homes for immigrants.
Sulzberger’s mother was likewise mindful of her Jewish heritage. While the Sulzbergers originated in Bavaria, the Hayses and Rachel’s other ancestors, the Seixases and Peixottos, were Sephardic. At this time the Sephardim were considered prestigious, and Rachel imbued her son with a sense of pride. It was for this reason that Sulzberger always wished to be called by his full name.
Working for his father’s firm, Sulzberger met Iphigene Ochs, the daughter of Adolph Ochs, the publisher of The New York Times. Iphigene originally rejected Sulzberger’s marriage proposal, but later she accepted. Ochs consented to the marriage on the condition that Sulzberger work for The New York Times.
Although he was married to Ochs’s daughter, Sulzberger was not assured a position in the front office. He worked to ingratiate himself to Ochs, and he succeeded. First, Sulzberger secured exclusive rights to interview pioneer aviator Charles Lindbergh following his flight across the Atlantic Ocean and then he bought shares in a timber company to keep the newspaper’s productions costs low. When Adolf Hitler took power in Germany in 1933—sending Ochs into a deep depression—Sulzberger effectively became the publisher. Upon Ochs’s death in 1935, Sulzberger took over.
Life’s Work
For a year after Ochs’s death, Sulzberger did not make any changes, in deference to his predecessor’s memory. However, even before officially taking the reins, Sulzberger had been experimenting with new technology. He was interested in making the newspaper increasingly pictorial, and he financed the development of a technology that would transmit photographs across telephone wires. When the first transcontinental photos were printed in The New York Times on February 14, 1935, they caused a sensation. Sulzberger continued his successful strategy of promoting photographs; he started printing photo sections in Sunday papers in 1942.
Deeply troubled by the annexations made by Germany and Japan, which eventually led to World War II, Sulzberger took the unusual step of asking the newspaper’s editorialists to awaken national sentiment in support of the besieged nations. On June 15, 1938, The New York Times proclaimed it was the duty of every American to support the democracies of the world. In 1940, as France was falling to German invasion, Sulzberger asked for an editorial demanding peacetime conscription to strengthen the United States. As an executive of the Red Cross, Sulzberger arranged for one of his daughters to go overseas. Later, Sulzberger went to Britain and the Soviet Union, where he observed his reporters working, and he met with England’s prime ministerWinston Churchill and Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov. Working for the Red Cross, Sulzberger came to see himself as a diplomat and gave radio messages to rouse public spirit. In 1945, Sulzberger got his best return on his investment in photography when The New York Times gained exclusive photos of the body of Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini hanging on a scaffold.
During the 1950’s, The New York Times struggled through attacks by Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Committee on Un-American Activities, which pursued those suspected of subversive activities. Sulzberger hated communism, but he eventually was compelled to print an editorial defending his newspaper and others under scrutiny.
In 1961, Sulzberger began to relinquish publishing duties to his son, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, who continued the journalistic dynasty. Arthur Hays Sulzberger died in his sleep at the age of seventy-seven in 1968.
Significance
As World War II drew near, it became clear to Arthur Hays Sulzberger that he would have to make changes to adjust to the modern world. To that end, he appointed Anne McCormick to be the paper’s first foreign affairs editorial commentator, making her the first woman editorialist of The New York Times. The job of desegregation also fell to Sulzberger, who hired The New York Times’s first African American reporter. While Sulzberger also worked to improve the racial attitudes of The Chattanooga Times, another Ochs legacy under Sulzberger’s sway, however, he was never a cutting-edge progressive.
One aspect of Sulzberger’s legacy that has attracted enormous criticism is The New York Times’s reporting on the Holocaust. While the newspaper published thousands of stories detailing Nazi atrocities, the stories were buried deep within the paper and rarely singled out the Jews as primary victims. Like many Jews of his age, Sulzberger had deep conflicts about his heritage and tried to keep it private. He was explicitly anti-Zionist years before the state of Israel existed, a notion that complicated his newspaper’s position in the public’s mind.
Bibliography
Berger, Meyer. The Story of the New York Times, 1851-1951. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1951. This glowing history of the newspaper’s first one hundred years includes a foreword by Sulzberger, who was then publisher. It includes details of the reporting process in the newspaper’s famous stories.
Leff, Laurel. Buried by the Times. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. A scathing criticism of The New York Times and Sulzberger for their handling of the coverage of the Holocaust.
Tift, Susan E., and Alex S. Jones. The Trust. New York: Little, Brown, 1999. A multigenerational biography of each prominent member of the Ochs-Sulzberger dynasty, this book takes a personal approach, exploring the private lives of its subjects. It contains detailed portraits of both Adolph Ochs and Sulzberger.