Background

Morris Nathan Young was born on July 29, 1909, in Lawrence, Massachusetts, United States. He was the son of Charles Michael and Ida Davis Young.

Education

Morris Young studied chemistry at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in 1930. Then he obtained a Master of Arts degree from Harvard University in 1931. During the Great Depression, he was unable to find a job as a chemist so he continued his education to get a Doctor of Medicine degree from Columbia University in 1935.

Career

At the beginning of his career, Morris Young became an ophthalmologist working as a resident in the field at the Harlem Eye and Ear Hospital during the late 1930s. When World War II began, Young who was already in the United States Army Reserve became part of the Medical Corps and saw action in Europe and North Africa, where he performed facial reconstructive surgery on the wounded. After the war, he returned to private practice and worked at University Hospital in New York City. Beginning in 1958 he was also an attending ophthalmologist and professor of ophthalmology at French & Polyclinic Medical School and Health Center in New York City. In 1970 he joined the staff of Beekman Downtown Hospital (now NewYork-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital) as a chief ophthalmologist, and he was a consultant to Beth Israel Hospital (now Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center) from 1972 until 1993.

Young had a lifelong interest in magic acts and was a world-class collector of posters, books, and other items relating to magicians. Young’s fascination with all things magical led him to amass an enormous collection of books on the subject, which he gathered together with his friend John J. McManus. Together, they found books dating back to the sixteenth century on such subjects as spiritualism, witchcraft, hypnotism, fortune-telling, and more. The collection grew to some twenty thousand items, which Young and McManus donated to the Library of Congress in 1955.

Young also collected books on mnemonics, donating his findings to the University of San Marino in Italy in 1990, and he loved to collect old sheet music, and even purchased copyrights to many songs dating back to the nineteenth century. Naturally, while researching and collecting all these works, Young became an expert on these subjects, and he wrote down his knowledge in several books, including Presto Prestige (1929), Hobby Magic (1950), Houdini’s Fabulous Magic (1961), written with Walter B. Gibson, How to Develop an Exceptional Memory (1962), also written with Gibson, Original Magicol and Indices (1998), and Radio Music Live: 1920-1950, a Pictorial Gamut (1999). He was also the editor of MAGICOL magazine from 1949 to 1952.

Achievements

• Morris Nathan Young was a renowned and recognized physician as well as a prolific author on magic and memory. He was listed as a notable ophthalmologist and writer by Marquis Who's Who. Among his most highly regarded honors was his membership of the Inner Circle of the Magic Circle of London, one of the world's most esteemed groups of magicians.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Radio Music Live: 1920-1950, a Pictorial Gamut

    (In Radio Music Live: 1920-1950, a Pictorial Gamut, the au...)

    1999
  • How to Read Faster and Remember More

    (How to Read Faster and Remember More is a program designe...)

    1965
  • How to Develop an Exceptional Memory

    (The book details ways in which to develop an exceptional ...)

    1962
  • Bibliography of memory 1961
  • Houdini's Fabulous Magic 1961
  • Hobby Magic 1950

Connections

Morris Young was married to Chesley Virginia Barnes. The marriage produced two children, Cheryl Lesley Deknatel and Charles Chesley.

Father:

Charles Michael Young

Mother:

Ida Davis Young

Wife:

Chesley Virginia Barnes