S. S. McClure
Samuel Sidney McClure (February 17, 1857 – March 21, 1949) was an American publisher who became known as a key figure in investigative, or muckraking, journalism. He co-founded and ran McClure's Magazine from 1893 to 1911, which ran numerous exposées of wrongdoing in business and politics, such as those written by Ida Tarbell, Ray Stannard Baker, and Lincoln Steffens. The magazine ran fiction and nonfiction by the leading writers of the day, including Sarah Orne Jewett, Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, Joel Chandler Harris, Jack London, Stephen Crane, William Allen White and Willa Cather.
S. S. McClure
March 21, 1949 (aged 92)
Investigative journalist, publisher, editor
Harriet Hurd (1883-1929; her death)
Legacy[edit]
According to his biographer Peter Lyon, McClure was, "one of the greatest instinctive editors ever to function in the US, and one of the most wretched businessmen." Lyon suggests that he had a manic-depressive personality, combining enthusiasm, tenacity, and a remarkable talent for predicting public responses. He favored Western writers, and especially muckraking articles that made his magazine famous. On the other hand, he was unstable with a hair-trigger impatience that alienated many staffers. Always in the red, he sold first his book publishing house, then his nationwide newspaper syndicate, and finally his own magazine.[8]