Background
Ellery was born on February 27, 1872 in New York City, New York, United States, the son of Henry Dwight Sedgwick, a lawyer, and Henrietta Ellery.
(How the most respected literary periodical of its time ba...)
How the most respected literary periodical of its time balanced "high" culture with moderate liberalism
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Ellery was born on February 27, 1872 in New York City, New York, United States, the son of Henry Dwight Sedgwick, a lawyer, and Henrietta Ellery.
At an early age Ellery Sedgwick was sent to a private boarding school, where he was very unhappy. "I was an untalented boy, " he later wrote, "biddable, reasonably unattractive, and most content when unnoticed. " Sedgwick later attended the Groton School, where he was less dissatisfied and where he taught Latin and English in 1894-1896, after graduation from Harvard with the Bachelor of arts (1894).
Sedgwick worked briefly as a reporter for the Worcester (Massachussets) Gazette and in 1896 became an assistant editor of the Youth's Companiom, beginning an editorial career that continued for more than forty years. In 1899, Sedgwick wrote a brief popular biography of Thomas Paine for Beacon Biographies, a series edited by Mark Antony De Wolfe Howe.
In 1900, Sedgwick went to Leslie's Monthly as editor. It was a "rickety periodical, " Sedgwick said, "wedged in the ruck among also-rans, . .. without capital, without character, depending for its very life on an occasional hit. "
Although he did not consider himself a muckraker, Sedgwick looked for themes that would be "constructive" and popular. In 1903 he found one, the problem of railroad accidents. To Sedgwick and his magazine, historian Louis Filler said, must go credit for a campaign that did much to bring government regulation of railroads. Although Sedgwick sometimes ran an appreciative article about a railroad executive, he often pointed to and deplored the injury and death rate among rail passengers and persuaded Leslie's readers to place the blame where he thought it belonged: on the railroad management.
While he was editor of Leslie's, Sedgwick was so pleased with an article by a young writer named H. L. Mencken that, in 1901, he offered him a job as an associate editor. Mencken declined, but a friendship between the two resulted. In 1906, Sedgwick left the American Magazine (it had recently succeeded Leslie's), worked for a year on McClure's Magazine and, briefly, for D. Appleton and Company as a book editor.
In 1908 he was able to fulfill a lifelong ambition by arranging to buy, for $50, 000, the venerable but ailing Atlantic Monthly. It had a circulation of only 15, 000 copies a month, and its annual deficit was $5, 000. Within three years Sedgwick had the Atlantic in greatly improved financial condition. He early hit upon a successful editorial formula, based on his flair for social criticism and his awareness of political and economic changes in American life.
In 1926 he attacked Wall Street practices with penetrating articles by Harvard economist William Z. Ripley, and in March 1927 he attracted many readers by publishing Felix Frankfurter's discussion of the Sacco-Vanzetti trial. By 1928 the circulation of the Atlantic had reached 137, 000 a month.
Sedgwick discovered numerous writers, but he was an enthusiast and on a few occasions was taken in by those whose talent and authenticity were less impressive than he judged. For instance, "The Diary of Opal Whitely, " was accepted as genuine by Sedgwick though serious doubts were later raised.
In 1938, after thirty years as editor, Sedgwick resigned. He insisted the resignation was in no way related to two articles he had written that February for the New York Times, praising General Francisco Franco's regime in Spain. The articles brought strong letters of protest to the Times, one signed by 63 members of the League of American Writers and one signed by more than 100 educators. The articles also caused the only sharp and prolonged disagreement on his own staff during his editorship.
In 1939, Sedgwick sold his controlling interest in the Atlantic for a sum of cash said to be the largest in the history of magazines until that time. In retirement he composed his memoirs, The Happy Profession (1946). In Atlantic Harvest (1947) Sedgwick put together an anthology of nearly fifty stories and articles by as many writers.
In his later years he lived at his large estate in Beverly, Massachussets, but spent the winter in Washington, District of Columbia, where he died.
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Sedgwick usually voted for Democratic candidates in national elections. He praised General Francisco Franco's regime in Spain and termed the conditions he found there "normal. "
Sedgwick was short, thickset, and heavy-featured, and he had a taste for garishly checked suits and shirts of strange colors. Sedgwick, who was occasionally irascible, always ran a tight ship and did not delegate editorial responsibilities often or easily.
Quotes from others about the person
Frederick Lewis Allen, a former editorial associate, described Sedgwick as an "odd mixture of primness, practicality, and wide-ranging enthusiasm, " and said his method of editing was simple: "He keeps a sharp lookout for promising material among incoming manuscripts, never forgetting that even in an unpromising manuscript there may be the germ of a valuable feature. "
On September 23, 1904, Sedgwick married Mabel Cabot; they had five children. Mabel Sedgwick died in 1937. On May 1, 1939, Sedgwick married Isabel Marjorie Russell. They had no children.