Adolph Ochs
Adolph Simon Ochs (March 12, 1858 - April 8, 1935) was born in Cincinnati in 1868 to German-Jewish immigrants, Julius and Bertha Levy Ochs. He left grammar school to become a printer’s assistant at the Knoxville Chronicle. At the age of 19, he borrowed $250 to purchase a controlling interest in the Chattanooga Times, becoming its publisher. In 1896, at the age of 36, he again borrowed money to purchase The New York Times, a money-losing paper that had a wide range of competitors in New York City. His focus on objective news reporting (in a time when newpapers were openly and highly partisan), and a well-timed price decrease (from 3 cents per issue to 1 cent) lead to its rescue from near oblivion, increasing its readership from 9,000 at the time of his purchase to 780,000 by the 1920s.
In 1884, Ochs married Effie Wise, the daughter of Rabbi Isaac M. Wise of Cincinnati, who was the leading exponent of Reform Judaism in America and the founder of Hebrew Union College. His only daughter, Iphigene Bertha Ochs, married Arthur Hays Sulzberger, who became publisher of the Times after Adolph, his father-in-law, died. Her son Arthur Ochs "Punch" Sulzberger subsequently became publisher of the Times.
In 1904, Ochs moved the Times to a newly-built building on Longacre Square in Manhattan, which the City of New York then renamed as Times Square. On New Year's Eve 1904, Ochs had pyrotechnists illuminate his new building at One Times Square with a fireworks show from street level.
His nephew, Julius Ochs Adler, worked at the Times for more than 40 years, becoming general manager of The New York Times in 1935, after Ochs died.
Reference
- The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family behind The New York Times, Susan E. Tifft and Alex S. Jones, Little, Brown and Company, 1999.