William Shawn
| William Shawn | |
|---|---|
| Born |
William Chon August 31, 1907 Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Died | December 8, 1992 (aged 85) New York, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | Magazine editor |
| Spouse(s) | Cecille Lyon (1928-1992; his death); 3 children |
| Children |
Wallace Shawn Allen Shawn Mary Shawn |
William Shawn (August 31, 1907 – December 8, 1992) was an American magazine editor who edited The New Yorker from 1952 until 1987.
William Shawn was born in Chicago, the son of Benjamin T. Chon, a well-to-do cutlery merchant, and Anna Bransky Chon. He was the youngest of five. His older siblings were Harold (1892–1967), Melba (1894-19??), Nelson (1898-19??), and Myron (1902–1987). His family were non-observant Jews of Russian origin. Benjamin Chon dropped out of the University of Michigan after two years (1925–1927) and began working.
He traveled to Las Vegas, New Mexico, where he worked at the local newspaper, The Optic. He returned to Chicago and worked as a journalist. Around 1930 he changed the spelling of his last name to Shawn. In 1932, he and his wife, Cecille, moved to New York City, where he tried to start a career as a composer.
Soon after their arrival in New York City, Cecille took a fact checking job at The New Yorker magazine, and her husband began working there in 1933. He would stay at the magazine for 53 years.
Shawn rose to assistant editor of The New Yorker and oversaw the magazine's coverage of World War II. In 1946, he persuaded the magazine's founder and editor, Harold Ross, to run John Hersey's story about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima as the entire contents of one issue. He left for a few months shortly after that to write on his own, but soon returned.
A few weeks after Ross died in December 1951, Shawn was named editor. Shawn's quiet style was a marked contrast to Ross's noisy manner. Whereas Ross constantly wrote letters to his contributors, Shawn hated to share anything, especially on paper. His shyness was office (and New York) legend, as were his claustrophobia and fear of elevators; many of his colleagues maintain that he carried a hatchet in his briefcase, in case he became trapped.
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