Ross, Harold

Ross, Harold (Wallace)

(1892–1951) editor; born in Aspen, Colo. In 1925, with financial backing from businessman Raoul Fleischmann, he founded the New Yorker as a sophisticated magazine aimed at a metropolitan audience. With meticulous editing and the services of such contributors as E. B. White, S. J. Perelman, James Thurber, John O'Hara, Ogden Nash, Robert Benchley, Dorothy Parker, Edmund Wilson, and others, he guided the magazine to greatness, especially in its short stories, humor, cartoons, and interpretative reporting.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.