Background
Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar Curtis was born in Portland, Maine, on June 18, 1850, the son of Cyrus Libby Curtis (a manufacturer of home furnishings) and Salome Ann Cummings Curtis. His family lost their home in the Great Fire of Portland.
Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar Curtis was born in Portland, Maine, on June 18, 1850, the son of Cyrus Libby Curtis (a manufacturer of home furnishings) and Salome Ann Cummings Curtis. His family lost their home in the Great Fire of Portland.
Curtis was forced to leave high school after his first year in 1866. In Portland he received a limited local education.
Cyrus worked as a clerk, errand boy, and salesman in Portland, and at the age of 13 launched his first publishing venture with a small paper entitled Young America. He next sold newspaper advertising in Boston and in 1872 established a weekly there, The People's Ledger, which he published for six years.
Moving to Philadelphia in 1876, he founded the Tribune and Farmer three years later; the women's column of this magazine, under the editorial direction of his wife, became so successful that in 1883 it expanded to become The Ladies' Home Journal. In 1889 the editorship of the magazine was taken over by his son-in-law, Edward W. Bok, under whom it rapidly became the leading magazine of its type. Curtis formed the Curtis Publishing Company in 1890 and in 1897 purchased The Saturday Evening Post, developing it into one of the outstanding successes of periodical history.
In 1911 he acquired The Country Gentleman and in 1913 entered the field of newspaper publishing with the Philadelphia Public Ledger, with which he later merged several other Philadelphia papers. He formed Curtis-Martin Newspapers, Inc., in 1925, eventually consisting of the Public Ledger, the New York Evening Post, acquired in 1924, and the Philadelphia Inquirer, purchased in 1930. Curtis's magazines, however, were considerably more successful than his newspapers, perhaps largely because of his extremely shrewd choice of editors for the former. He retired as president of the publishing company in 1932.
He died in Wyncote, Pennsylvania, on June 7, 1933, and bequeathed his large fortune to hospitals, colleges, and museums.
Quotations: "There are two kinds of men who never amount to much: those who cannot do what they are told and those who can do nothing else."
Curtis's first wife was Louisa Knapp with whom he had a daughter. His second wife was Kate Stanwood Cutter Pillsbury.