Bernard George Davis was born on December 11, 1906 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was the son of Charles Davis, a scrap-metal broker, and Sarah Alice Harris. The youngest of six children, he grew up in a comfortable atmosphere of prosperity and achievement.
After graduating from Peabody High School in Pittsburgh in 1923, he enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania for one year, attended Columbia University for a summer session (1926), and completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Pittsburgh, where he earned a B. S. in 1927.
As the student editor of the University of Pittsburgh's humor magazine, the Pitt Panther, Davis was active in the Association of College Comics of the East, serving as secretary-treasurer his senior year. At the association's convention that year, he met William B. Ziff, the twenty-nine-year-old president of a small Chicago firm that published comic books and specialized magazines such as Popular Aviation and that sold advertising for a network of forty African-American newspapers. Offered a job as an editorial assistant, Davis joined the William B. Ziff Company in 1927 and soon became an editor on Ziff's America's Humor magazine.
A photography enthusiast, he later was the founding editor of the successful magazine that became Popular Photography. Though their ensuing twenty-five-year relationship was always more professional than personal, Ziff, a widely traveled author active in public affairs and a prominent participant in the American Zionist movement, clearly valued Davis's evident magazine-publication management skills.
In 1936, Davis was appointed vice-president and director, and the name of the firm was changed to the Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. He was also given a substantial minority equity position in the company, and when the enterprise moved from Chicago to New York City in 1946, he was named president. By the early 1950's, Davis was directing the publishing operations of a number of profitable Ziff-Davis magazines in such emerging special-interest fields as aviation, photography, and electronics.
After Ziff's death in 1953, Davis offered to buy the company from the Ziff family. The family, however, declined his offer, and Ziff's son, William B. Ziff, Jr. , assumed control of the firm. In 1957, Davis sold his interests in Ziff-Davis Publishing to the family and, with his son, Joel, founded Davis Publications. The company eventually published thirty-four specialized magazines, annuals, and directories; its two best-known titles were Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, acquired with the purchase of Mercury Publications in 1957; and Science and Mechanics, acquired from the Curtis Publishing Company in 1959. Other publications included Boat Builder, Camping Journal, Car Repair, Electronics Hobbyist, Elementary Electronics, Furniture, Hi-Fi Stereo Buyers Guide, Home Workshop, Income Opportunities, 101 Home Plans, Radio-TV Repair, and Woodworker.
Davis continued as president of Davis Publications until 1967, when he became chairman of the board and named his son, Joel, to succeed him as president. He was also active in professional associations, serving as a member of the board of directors (1955 - 1968) and treasurer (1959 - 1967) of the Magazine Publishers Association, and as the magazine publishing representative on the American Council on Education for Journalism (1960 - 1966). After a heart attack in 1968, Davis moved from New York City to Palm Beach, Fla.
He retained the title of chairman but turned over most of the management responsibilities for Davis Publications to his son. Though semiretired, an interest in foreign travel led him to accept a position with the University of Palm Beach as director of international programs in 1969. During a business trip to Seoul, Republic of Korea, he suffered another heart attack and died; in accordance with his wishes, the body was cremated in Korea.
As one of the publishing professionals who understood that the growing American interest in leisure activities, particularly after World War II, would present unique opportunities for the magazine industry, Davis proved adept both as senior executive during his thirty-year career at Ziff-Davis Publishing and later as the entrepreneurial founder of his own publishing firm. His forte was specialized publications, and the magazines, buyer's guides, and directories he published played a significant supporting role in defining the popular culture, as well as the avocational ideal of "the good life, " in mid-twentieth-century America.
On November 20, 1930, Davis married Sylvia Friedman; they had two children.
