Captains of Industry (ep24) Adolph Simon Ochs

Adolph Simon Ochs (March 12, 1858 – April 8, 1935) was an American newspaper publisher and former owner of The New York Times and The Chattanooga Times, which is now the Chattanooga Times Free Press. Through his only child, Iphigene Ochs Sulzberger, and her husband Arthur Hays Sulzberger, Ochs's descendants continue to publish The New York Times through the present day.

Early life and education
Ochs was born to in Cincinnati, Ohio, on March 12, 1858, to Julius Ochs and Bertha Levy, were both German Jewish immigrants. His father had left Bavaria for the United States in 1846.[1] Julius was a highly educated man fluent in six languages, and he taught at schools throughout the South. He supported the Union during the Civil War. Ochs' mother Bertha came to the United States in 1848, fleeing the German Revolutions in Rhenish Bavaria, and lived in the South prior to her 1853 marriage to Ochs' father, Julius. She sympathized with the Confederacy during the American Civil War, but the conflicting sympathies between them did not separate their household.

Following the end of the Civil War, the family moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, in the eastern, Union-affiliated part of the state. In Knoxville, Adolph studied in the public schools. During his spare time, he delivered newspapers.

Career
At age 11, Ochs went to work at the Knoxville Chronicle as an office assistant to the newspaper's editor, William Rule, who became a mentor. In 1871, Ochs worked as a grocer's clerk in Providence, Rhode Island, attending a night school meanwhile. He returned to Knoxville, where he was an apprentice to a pharmacist for some time.

In 1872, Ochs returned to the Chronicle as a printer's devil, who looked after various details in the composing room of the newspaper. His siblings also worked at the newspaper to supplement the income of their father, a lay religious leader for Knoxville's small Jewish community. The Chronicle was the only Republican, pro-Reconstruction, newspaper in the city, but Ochs counted Father Ryan, the Poet-Priest of the Confederacy, among his customers.

Chattanooga Times
Further information: Chattanooga Times Free Press
At the age of 19, he borrowed $250 from his family to purchase a controlling interest in the Chattanooga Times, becoming its publisher.

The following year, he founded a commercial paper that he called The Tradesman. He was one of the founders of the Southern Associated Press and served as president.

The New York Times
Further information: The New York Times

Ochs on the September 1, 1924, cover of Time magazine
In 1896, at the age of 38, he was advised by The New York Times reporter Henry Alloway that the paper could be bought at a greatly reduced price due to its financial losses and wide range of competitors in New York City.

After borrowing money to purchase the Times for $75,000, Ochs formed The New York Times Company, placed the paper on a strong financial foundation, and became the majority stockholder.

In 1904, Ochs hired Carr Van Anda as his managing editor. They focused on objective journalism at a time when newspapers were openly and highly partisan. They also decreased the newspaper's cost from 3 cents per issue to 1 cent, which led to the newspaper's survival. The newspaper's readership increased from 9,000 at the time of his purchase to 780,000 by the 1920s. He also added the Times' well-known masthead motto: "All the News That's Fit to Print".

In 1904, Ochs moved The New York Times to a newly built building on Longacre Square in Manhattan, which the City of New York then renamed as Times Square.

On New Year's Eve 1904, Ochs had pyrotechnists illuminate his new building at One Times Square with a fireworks show from street level.

Beginning with 1896, there was issued weekly a supplement, eventually called The New York Times Book Review and Magazine. Other auxiliary publications were incrementally added, including The Annalist, a financial review appearing on Mondays, The Times Mid-Week Pictorial on Thursdays, Current History Magazine, a monthly, started during World War I, The New York Times Index, started in 1913, published quarterly, and comparable only to the Index, published by The Times in London.

On August 18, 1921, the 25th anniversary of reorganization, The New York Times employed 1,885 people. It was classified as an independent Democratic publication, and consistently opposed William Jennings Bryan in his presidential campaigns. By its fairness in the presentation of news, editorial moderation and ample foreign service, it secured a high place in American journalism, becoming widely read and influential throughout the United States.