Background
John Ames Mitchell was born on January 17, 1845, in New York City, the son of Asa and Harriet (Ames) Mitchell. Early in life, he showed an aptitude for drawing.
John Ames Mitchell was born on January 17, 1845, in New York City, the son of Asa and Harriet (Ames) Mitchell. Early in life, he showed an aptitude for drawing.
Mitchell attended Phillips Exeter Academy and the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard, aiming toward an architectural career. Later, he studied architecture in Boston and from 1867 to 1870 at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In 1876, after following the profession for a few years in Boston, he returned to Paris, this time to study painting at the Atelier Julien. Here he developed an interest in studies in black and white and succeeded so well that some of his etchings were published in L'Art.
In 1880, Mitchell returned to New York to work as an illustrator. He believed that there ought to be some American medium for the publication of line work by Americans, a belief confirmed by the fact that a zinc process for the reproduction of black and white had recently been developed. With this much to go on, with a ten-thousand-dollar legacy as capital, and against the advice of friends, he founded Life, with Edward S. Martin as literary editor. The first issue appeared January 4, 1883. At the outset, the young founder had some difficulty finding enough illustrators to keep up with his ideas but he soon gathered about him a number of promising young men, among them Francis Gilbert Attwood of the Harvard Lampoon, Oliver Herford, and Charles Dana Gibson. The editor himself contributed cartoons and editorials. When Mitchell had well established his magazine, he began writing novels.
Mitchell's last two campaigns were the result of the war: one a bitter anti-German battle resulting from the torpedoing of the Lusitania and the other a movement to raise funds for French war orphans. Through Life, he collected more than two hundred thousand dollars for the latter purpose and in 1918 subscribers to the magazine were supporting 2, 800 French children. Mitchell retained until his death a controlling interest in Life and had a hand in passing upon all material published in it. He died of apoplexy at his summer home in Ridgefield, Connecticut.
As an editor, Mitchell had very decided opinions and was not afraid to express them. He was an outspoken opponent of modern medicine and fought the use of serum in the cure of any disease. He contended that sanitation, not vaccination, had reduced the scourge of smallpox, and he was opposed to the use of dogs, which he loved, in medical vivisection. Owing to his outspoken policy, he was frequently involving his magazine in libel suits, one of the chief being that brought by the theatrical producers, Klaw and Erlanger, who objected to a cartoon run in Life after the Iroquois Theatre fire in Chicago in 1903. In this, as in many cases, the jury returned a verdict in favor of the weekly. The success of Life was due largely to Mitchell's quick ability to divine and anticipate the trends in American popular thought and to give expression to them in the form of humor. His belief that humor should depend not upon old hackneyed jokes but upon topics of current interest led to an emphasis on politics. It was said that politicians of the nineties and early nineteen hundreds feared Life's cartoons more than its editorials.
a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters
Although Mitchell was a great lover of dogs he was an even greater lover of children. It was this interest which prompted him to establish "Life's Fresh Air Fund, " which made possible the establishment of summer camps for poor city children.
Quotes from others about the person
"Mitchell, the man, is very difficult to discover, " Ms. Charlesen told The Ridgefield Press in the early 1990s. "He did no self-advertising. He was very humble. " Yet, added Mr. Puchall, he was "a man who planted many seeds. "
Mitchell was married to Mary Mott Mitchell.