Background

Ziff was born on August 1, 1898 in Chicago, Illinois, the son of David Ziff and Libby Mary Semco Ziff. His father, a farmer, had immigrated to the United States from East Prussia in 1880; his mother came from Memel, Lithuania.

Education

Ziff attended Crane Technical High School in Chicago, where he was chosen class artist. Wanting to become a portrait painter, he studied for two years (1915-1917) at the Art Institute of Chicago. To pay for his education, he washed dishes, shoveled coal, and sold "everything from flatirons to shoes. "

Career

After he left school, Ziff set himself up as a commercial artist and worked briefly as a cartoonist for the Chicago Daily News. During World War I, Ziff served with the United States Army's 202nd Aero Observation Squadron. This experience helped shape his early strong views on the importance of air power in modern warfare. At the age of twenty-two Ziff organized an advertising agency in Chicago. His company, which dealt principally with newspaper advertising, showed substantial profits almost at once and continued to prosper. In 1923 Ziff became the head of E. C. Auld Company, a Chicago publishing house. Ziff's Magazine, a humorous periodical, was his first venture in magazine publishing, a field in which he subsequently achieved marked success. The name of the new magazine, which at first was written and illustrated almost entirely by Ziff, was subsequently changed to America's Humor. He continued as its editor for several years. From 1931 to 1933 Ziff was editor and publisher of Aeronautics, a magazine that printed a number of Gen. William ("Billy") Mitchell's controversial articles calling for the reformation of American air policy and a unified United States Air Force. A strong believer in Mitchell's doctrines, Ziff wrote many articles on military subjects, aligning himself with the views of Mitchell, Edward Rickenbacker, Alexander P. de Seversky, and other exponents of a powerful United States air arm. In 1932 Ziff unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for congressman in the Second District of Illinois. In the campaign, his only attempt to win public office, he proposed the reform of federal banking laws and opposed prohibition and the cancellation of foreign debts. In 1933 he organized the corporation that eventually became Ziff-Davis Publishing, an extremely successful enterprise. By 1946 the firm was publishing a dozen magazines including the semitechnical Flying, Popular Photography, Radio News, and Plastics, and the successful "pulps" Amazing Stories, Air Adventures, Fantastic Adventures, and Mammoth Detective. The company added a book publishing division in 1942 by buying Alliance Book Corporation and was soon issuing some sixty titles a year. In 1949 the book publishing division was sold to Prentice-Hall. Ziff's first book, The Rape of Palestine (1938), was a bitter criticism of Great Britain's acts and policies in the administration of the Palestine mandate and the treatment of Jews. Ziff's next book, The Coming Battle of Germany (1942), was his most successful, a best-seller that urged the immediate Allied recognition that air power was the single weapon by which victory over Germany could be achieved. Ziff argued convincingly for the primacy of the airplane as an offensive weapon and as a cargo carrier designed to defeat the submarine menace. The book appeared at a time when its hortatory, intemperate tone suited the mood of an embattled nation. At times Ziff was shrewdly prescient in his appraisals, and most reviewers noted the vigor and cogency with which he presented his thesis. The book established Ziff's reputation as a successor to such advocates of air power as Mitchell and Giulio Douhet, the Italian military aviation theorist. In The Gentlemen Talk of Peace (1944), Ziff surveyed the problems of peacemaking with the same cold realism and hard-hitting style that characterized his book on air warfare. Two Worlds (1946) was a gloomy but closely reasoned discussion of world power politics, a disillusioned analysis of the problems of keeping the peace. His last book, He, the Maker (1949), a short, episodic book of poetry, received and deserved little critical notice. The great success of his business enterprises provided Ziff the wealth needed to live well. At various times he maintained homes in Chicago, Washington, D. C. , New York City, Sarasota, Florida, and a 1, 600-acre farm, Mulberry Grove, near Port Tobacco, Maryland. He died in New York City.

Achievements

• Ziff was an author, notable for his books and known as the founder of the magazine publisher Ziff Davis Inc.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The gentlemen talk of peace

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • Flying: U.S. Naval Aviation at War, V32, No. 2, Special Issue, February 1943

    (Contributing Authors Include Frank Knox, Artemus L. Gates...)

  • He the Maker
  • The coming battle of Germany
  • The rape of Palestine,
  • The gentlemen talk of peace

Membership

In 1935 Ziff had become president of the Zionist Revisionist Organization.

Personality

Ziff was enormously energetic and easygoing and mild-mannered. Six feet tall and bespectacled, he dressed casually and had a deep, powerful voice.

Interests

• Ziff had hobbies that he pursued vigorously - hunting, fishing, cattle raising, gardening, and woodcraft.

Connections

On July 25, 1923, Ziff married Denea Fischer; they had one daughter. The marriage ended in divorce; and on April 27, 1929, Ziff married Amelia Mary Morton; they had three children. Their son William Bernard, Jr. , eventually became the head of the publishing firm his father had established.

Father:

David Ziff

Mother:

Libby Mary Semco Ziff

Spouse:

Denea Fischer

Spouse:

Amelia Mary Morton

Son:

William Bernard Ziff Jr.

He was an American publishing executive.

References

• Between You and Me
• The Magazine World: An Introduction to Magazine Journalism
• Magazines in the twentieth century
• Makers of Modern Strategy: Military Thought From Machiavelli to Hitler