An adequate resource for readers new to this piece of the history of American journalism.
A history of McClure’s magazine, its publisher, and its most important contributor.
While employed on the editorial side of magazines and book publishing, Gorton began wondering about the motivations and interpersonal dynamics of writers and editors. When she discovered a century-old professional relationship between magazine publisher Samuel Sidney McClure and his star writer, Ida Minerva Tarbell, she began to conduct research for this book. Both born in 1857, McClure and Tarbell met in 1892 as he sought to hire her for the editorial staff of his nascent, eponymous monthly magazine. That magazine would become hugely successful from 1893 until about 1906, when internal and external forces caused a decline, leading to eventual closure. In Gorton’s wide-ranging book, the magazine does not make its debut until nearly 100 pages in. Before that, the author lays out a dual biography, alternating chapters between the two outsized personalities. While McClure was restless, Tarbell was steadier in nature. Gorton conducted primary documents research in archives filled with papers from McClure (mostly in Indiana) and Tarbell (mostly in Pennsylvania). The author also cites liberally from a previous McClure biography as well as two previous Tarbell biographies and her memoir, All in a Day’s Work, originally published in 1939. Tarbell’s fame rests largely on her accomplishments as a muckraking woman journalist in the male-dominated industry while McClure was well known for his ability to lead “by enthusiasm, rather than by example.” The best-known content—an exposé of Standard Oil Company and John D. Rockefeller researched and written by Tarbell—appeared in installments published between 1902 and 1904 and was later published in 1904 as The History of the Standard Oil Company. Though Gorton offers a sturdy portrait of Tarbell and McClure for a new generation of readers, much of the information she provides has already appeared in previous books and historical journals. The author variously refers to Tarbell as “Miss Tarbell,” “Ida Tarbell,” or simply “Ida,” which becomes distracting.
An adequate resource for readers new to this piece of the history of American journalism.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-279664-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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