Background
Bennett was born on May 10, 1841, in New York City. His father was James Gordon Bennett, Sr. (1795-1872), the founder, editor and publisher of the New York Herald. His mother was Henrietta Agnes Crean, who raised the boy in Europe.
Bennett (c.1910-1915)
Bennett as painted by Julian Story (1904)
Cabinet card image of Bennett
Bennett was born on May 10, 1841, in New York City. His father was James Gordon Bennett, Sr. (1795-1872), the founder, editor and publisher of the New York Herald. His mother was Henrietta Agnes Crean, who raised the boy in Europe.
Taken to France by his mother to escape the unfavorable publicity about her husband caused by the sensationalism of the Herald, the young Bennett was educated there by private tutors. His chief interest, which he later emphasized in the Herald, was in sports, and he became an expert boxer, swimmer, and ballplayer.
Young Bennett served in 1861-1862 in the Civil War without distinction. In 1866 he climaxed several years dedicated to entertainment and sports by winning a grueling transatlantic yachting contest.
In 1867 his father made Bennett head of the Herald's editorial department. That year the young man launched the Evening Telegram, which exploited sensational news. Bennett early projected his goal of making as well as reporting news. As in his scoop on the Custer massacre in 1876, he followed his father's goal of energetic news gathering.
Most famous was his 1869 assignment to Henry M. Stanley to find Dr. David Livingstone in Africa - a successful mission that won world acclaim. Other exploits included efforts to reach the North Pole and to find the Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean. Bennett published the distinguished reports of J. A. MacGahan, providing evidence of Bulgarian atrocities that helped spark the Russo-Turkish War of 1871. Notable, too, was Bennett's duel with financier Jay Gould, whose telegraph and cable systems taxed Bennett and others heavily.
In 1887 Bennett started the Paris Herald, which over the years gratified American tourists abroad and enjoyed its own journalistic distinctions. It ran at a loss (as did the London edition, 1889-1891, which failed entirely) but helped explicate the American image abroad. The competition of publishers William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer in the 1890 harmed the Herald's prestige, but the paper revived during the Spanish-American War (1898), when Bennett's resourcefulness and knowledge of ships resulted in creative reporting. Bennett moved from notoriety to fame, and back again. His new Herald building in New York was long a showplace for its architectural charm.
Bennett adapted his methods to the new trend, and the Herald survived, with Bennett drawing more than a million dollars a year for more than 40 years. He died in Beaulieu-sur-Mer, France, on May 14, 1918.
The tall, straight, firm-jawed "Commodore" (so named by the New York Yacht Club) often scandalized society with his flamboyant and sometimes erratic behavior.
Bennett did not marry until he was 73. His wife was Maud Potter, widow of George de Reuter, son of Julius Paul Reuter, founder of Reuters news agency.