Heywood Broun
Heywood Broun was a multifaceted American journalist, writer, and playwright, born on December 7, 1888, in Brooklyn, New York. He attended Harvard University but left without a degree, embarking on a diverse career that included roles as a sports reporter, foreign correspondent, and drama critic. Notably, he became a prominent columnist for the New York Tribune and later the New York World, where he authored impactful essays addressing social injustices, including high-profile cases like the Scottsboro boys and Sacco and Vanzetti. Broun was also an advocate for labor rights, co-founding the American Newspaper Guild, which he considered his most significant contribution to journalism.
His personal life included two marriages; he was married to feminist Ruth Hale and later to chorus girl Connie Madison. Broun enjoyed collaboration with fellow literary figures from the Algonquin Round Table, and his theatrical efforts included producing a Broadway musical revue titled "Shoot the Works." Over his lifetime, he published several novels and essay collections, many reflecting autobiographical elements. Broun passed away from pneumonia complications on December 18, 1939, leaving behind a legacy as a champion for both journalism and social justice.
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Subject Terms
Heywood Broun
Journalist
- Born: December 7, 1888
- Birthplace: Brooklyn, New York
- Died: December 18, 1939
Biography
Heywood Broun was a man of wide ranging talents and accomplishments. He was a newspaper columnist, sports reporter, foreign correspondent, drama critic, theater producer, novelist, labor organizer, artist, and more. He also was a big man, tall and heavy, and notoriously ill kempt in his baggy suits and mismatched shoes and socks. Moreover, he exhibited intriguing contradictions, summed up by Margaret Case Harriman, who described him as “gently bred, slovenly of person, softhearted, steel-minded, evasive and direct, brave and terrified, considerate and tough, gregarious and solitary.”
Heywood Campbell Broun was born in Brooklyn, New York, on December 7, 1888, the son of Heywood Cox Broun, a British immigrant who had achieved success with his printing firm and then launched a new career as a wine merchant. Broun attended Harvard University from 1906 until 1910 and was in the same class as Walter Lippman, John Reed, T. S. Eliot, and Alan Seeger. Despite the illustrious career he was to pursue as a journalist, his Harvard years were undistinguished; he skipped classes, failed in his attempt to join the staff of the school newspaper, and was unable to pass French. He left Harvard a few credits shy of a degree.
Nevertheless, he was already employed by the New York Morning Telegraph, writing whatever was assigned to him, including reports of sporting events, interviews with vaudevillians and other performers, and occasional editorials. He worked at that newspaper for a year and quit after he was turned down for a raise in salary. He took a job at the New York Tribune, first as a copyreader and then as a sportswriter. He was successful at the Tribune, received a byline on his stories, and in 1915 became the newspaper’s drama critic.
In June, 1917, Broun married Ruth Hale, a press agent for a theatrical producer. She was an avowed and active proponent of feminism and Broun admired her intelligent and articulate work for the cause. The couple eagerly accepted assignments as foreign correspondents in France, covering World War I in 1918. Broun was with the Allied Expeditionary Force under General John Pershing. while Hale wrote for the Chicago Tribune. Hale returned to the United States before Broun in order to give birth to their son, Heywood Hale Broun. The couple’s marriage was cordial but for most of the time they lived apart. Eventually, Hale asked for a divorce and it was granted in November, 1933, less than a year before she died. In 1983, Heywood Hale Broun published a memoir of his family, Whose Little Boy Are You?.
Broun left the Tribune in 1921 and went to work at the New York World. During the next seven years, he published a regular column, “It Seems to Me.” His columns later were collected and published as anthologies, as were the essays he had written for the Tribune. His essays frequently dealt with issues of injustice and persecution. He was particularly vociferous in his defense of the Scottsboro boys and Sacco and Venzetti, and he also supported Margaret Sanger, John Scopes, and D. H. Lawrence. His views ultimately led him to resign from the World when his editor refused to publish one of his essays.
After leaving the World, Broun published a syndicated column for the Scripps-Howard newspapers, ran for Congress as a Socialist, and produced a Broadway musical revue. The Broadway show featured several of his friends who, like Broun, were members of the Algonquin Round Table, a famous collection of writers and journalists who regularly gathered at New York’s Algonquin Hotel in the 1920’s and early 1930’s. The show, Shoot the Works, opened on July 21, 1931, ran for eighty-nine performances, and probably exhausted Broun, who was not only producing it but also performing in it. It also led to his second marriage to Connie Madison, who was in the show’s chorus line. The two married in 1935, a few months after Hale’s death.
Always a champion of labor, Broun worked to ensure that journalists would receive fair treatment from their employers. To this end, he was instrumental in establishing the American Newspaper Guild in December, 1933. He regarded this as his most significant contribution to professional journalism.
Broun continued to write and publish his work until the end of his life. Two of his novels, The Boy Grew Older and The Sun Field, were thinly disguised autobiographies. Another novel, Gandel Follows His Nose, is an allegorical fairy tale. He and Margaret Leech wrote a biography of Anthony Comstock. Most of his books are collections of his essays, such as Pieces of Hates and Other Enthusiasms, Sitting on the World, and his last book, It Seems to Me: 1925- 1935. Broun died of complications from pneumonia on December 18, 1939.