Briton Hadden
Briton Hadden (February 18, 1898 – February 27, 1929) was the co-founder of Time magazine with his Yale classmate Henry Luce. He was Time's first editor and the inventor of its revolutionary writing style, known as Timestyle. Though he died at 31, he was considered one of the most influential journalists of the twenties, a master innovator and stylist, and an iconic figure of the Jazz Age.
Briton Hadden
February 18, 1898
February 27, 1929 (aged 31)
American
Founder of Time Magazine
Early life[edit]
Born in Brooklyn, Hadden got his start in newspaper writing at Brooklyn's Poly Prep Country Day School, where he wrote for the school magazine, the Poly Prep, and distributed a hand-written, underground sheet to his classmates that was called The Daily Glonk. Moving to the Hotchkiss School, he wrote for the Hotchkiss Record, a weekly newspaper. After an intense competition, he was elected the chairman of the newspaper and Luce the assistant managing editor. Hadden then turned the Record from a weekly into a bi-weekly.
At Yale, Hadden was elected to the staff of the Yale Daily News and later served as the paper's chairman twice (1917-1918 and 1919–1920). Luce was the News' managing editor the second time. While at Yale, he was a brother of Delta Kappa Epsilon (Phi chapter) and a member of Skull and Bones.[1]: 150 It was during a break from school, when Hadden and Luce traveled south to Camp Jackson, South Carolina as ROTC officer candidates, that they began seriously discussing the idea of creating a magazine that would condense all the news of the week into a brief and easily readable "digest."
Illness and death[edit]
In December 1928, Hadden became ill. He died two months later, most likely of streptococcus viridans, which had entered his bloodstream, causing sepsis and ultimately the failure of his heart. Before he died, Hadden signed a will, which left all of his stock in Time Inc. to his mother and forbade his family from selling those shares for 49 years. Within a year of Hadden's death, Luce formed a syndicate, which succeeded in gaining hold of Hadden's stock.
Legacy[edit]
Luce took Hadden's name off the masthead of Time within two weeks of his death. In the next 38 years, he delivered more than 300 speeches around the world, mentioning Hadden four times. Luce acquired control of Hadden's papers, and he kept them at Time Inc., where no one outside the company was allowed to view the papers as long as Luce lived. Throughout his life, Luce repeatedly claimed credit for Hadden's ideas in public speeches and in Time magazine.[3]
Luce presided over the growth of the Time-Life empire, and donated funds towards the construction of a building at 202 York Street in New Haven, Connecticut that would eventually become the Yale Daily News' new home. The office is today called the Briton Hadden Memorial Building.