Wilder Hobson
| Wilder Hobson | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Wilder Hobson February 18, 1906 New York City, New York United States |
| Died | May 1, 1964 (aged 58) Princeton, New Jersey United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Yale University |
| Occupation | Writer, magazine editor |
| Employer |
Time (1930s-1940s) Fortune (1940s) Harper's Bazaar (1950s) Newsweek (1960s) Saturday Review (1940s, 1950s, 1960s) |
| Board member of | Planning committee of the Institute of Jazz Studies |
| Spouse(s) | Peggy Hobson Verna Harrison Hobson (married 1945-1964) |
Wilder Hobson (1906–1964) was an American writer and editor for Time (1930s-1940s), Fortune (1940s), Harper's Bazaar (1950s), and Newsweek (1960s) magazines. He was also a competent musician (trombone), author of an history of American jazz, and long-time contributor to Saturday Review (1940s, 1950s, 1960s) magazine. Also, he served on the planning committee of the Institute of Jazz Studies.
Born in 1906, Hobson attended Yale University. There, he was a roommate of Dwight Macdonald, with whom he produced campus humor magazine The Yale Record. He was a 1928 member of Scroll and Key.
Famed American documentary photographer Walker Evans captured Hobson and Agee on a Long Island beach during the summer of 1937, when Evans and Agee were visiting Hobson and his first wife Peggy. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art houses those photos, which are also available online—see "Images," below.)
Hobson wrote for Time in the 1930s and 1940s. After covering a coal strike during the 1930s, he helped lead unionization at Time and became the first head of Time's Newspaper Guild branch.
In October 1942, Hobson succeeded the late Calvin Fixx as assistant editor to Whittaker Chambers, then editor of Arts & Entertainment. Other writers working for Chambers included: novelist Nigel Dennis, future New York Times Book Review editor Harvey Breit, and poets Howard Moss and Weldon Kees. Hobson worked amidst the struggle between Soviet-sympathizing and anti-Communist staffers at Time. Chambers and Willi Schlamm led the anti-Communist camp (and both later joined the founding editorial board of William F. Buckley, Jr.'s National Review). Theodore H. White and Richad Lauterbach led the pro-Soviet camp. Time founder Henry R. Luce came to support the anti-Communist camp before the end of World War II in 1945. Hobson, however, rode out the storm and even managed to write two books at Time: a historical study called American Jazz Music (1939—see "Music," below) and a novel called All Summer Long (1945).
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