Henry Luce

For his father, the missionary and educator, see Henry W. Luce.

Henry Robinson Luce (April 3, 1898 – February 28, 1967) was an American magazine publisher who founded Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated. He built one of the first multimedia corporations, combining print, radio, and newsreels, and promoted the idea of the "American Century", envisioning the United States as a global leader.^[1]

Henry Luce
Luce in 1954
Born	Henry Robinson Luce (1898-04-03)April 3, 1898 Tengchow, China
Died	February 28, 1967(1967-02-28) (aged 68) Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.
Alma mater	Yale University
Occupation(s)	Publisher, journalist
Political party	Republican
Spouses	Lila Ross Hotz ​ ​ (m. 1923; div. 1935)​ Clare Boothe Luce ​ (m. 1935)​
Children	3
Parent	Henry W. Luce

Early life and education

Luce was born in Tengchow, Shandong, China, now Penglai, on April 3, 1898, the son of Elizabeth Root Luce and Henry Winters Luce, who was a Presbyterian missionary.^[1]

At 15, he was sent to the U.S. to attend the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut, where he tried hard to overcome his stuttering. As a scholarship student he was isolated from the upper-class boys. He was subsidized by an elderly Chicago heiress, Nancy Fowler McCormick, who favored sons of missionaries. Applying himself to study, Luce quickly became the top student. He was especially strong in languages, studying Greek, Latin, French, and German, and already knowing Chinese. He edited the Hotchkiss Literary Monthly.^[2] There, he first met Briton Hadden; they became best friends.^[1]

Hotchkiss was a feeder prep school for Yale University. After a summer spent working on a Springfield newspaper, Luce matriculated in the fall of 1916. He was the top freshman academically, but grades did not confer as much prestige as a staff role on the Yale Daily News. Only four freshmen were chosen by the News; they included Luce and Hadden.^[3] When the U.S. entered World War I in 1917, a third of the students joined the army; the rest, including Luce, joined the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) and attended class in uniform.

Luce also joined Alpha Delta, a minor fraternity. His grades remained top-level, and every spare hour was devoted to newspaper work. Luce and Hadden were the two outstanding journalists; when the vote came in January 1918 for chairmanship of the News, Hadden beat Luce by one vote. Luce instead became managing editor and the two worked closely together and started planning their future. Meanwhile, the Army assigned them as ROTC leaders to train new recruits. The war ended before either was commissioned.

In January 1919, Luce and Hadden returned to Yale University as juniors. In May 1919, they were both tapped into the prestigious Skull and Bones secret society. Luce tried, but failed, to win a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford, but he was admitted to the university and paid his way. He spent the year travelling Europe, observing the post-World War I scene closely. He returned to the United States to take a newspaper job in Chicago as a junior reporter.^[4]

Career

Nightly discussions of the concept of a news magazine led Luce and Hadden, both age 23, to quit their jobs in 1922. Later that same year, they partnered with Robert Livingston Johnson and another Yale classmate to form Time Inc.^[5]

Luce, who remained editor-in-chief of all his publications until 1964, was also an influential figure in the Republican Party.^[6] Supported by editor-in-chief T. S. Matthews, he appointed Whittaker Chambers as acting Foreign News editor in 1944, despite Chambers' well-known feuds with reporters in the field.^[7] In 1941, he authored an editorial for Life titled "The American Century", in which he articulated his vision for the role of U.S. foreign policy for the remainder of the 20th century.^[6]

An instrumental figure behind the so-called "China Lobby", he played a large role in steering American foreign policy and popular sentiment in favor of Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek and his wife, Soong Mei-ling, in their war against the Japanese. (The Chiangs appeared in the cover of Time eleven times between 1927 and 1955.)^[8] In a 1965 diary entry, British publisher Cecil Harmsworth King recorded a dinner with Luce, noting that although Luce was "getting old and deaf," he remained a formidable personality. King reported that Luce praised the progress made in Taiwan and expressed contempt for the People's Republic of China, observing that its steel production was only 10 million tons a year, roughly the tonnage the United States used for ash-cans.^[9]

Personal life

The Luce Memorial Chapel at Tunghai University in Taiwan

Luce met his first wife, Lila Hotz, while he was studying at Yale University in 1919.^[10] They married in 1923 and had two children, Peter Paul and Henry Luce III, before divorcing in 1935.^[10]

In 1935, he married his second wife, Clare Boothe Luce, who had an 11-year-old daughter, Ann Clare Brokaw, whom he raised as his own. Ann Clare died in a car accident when she was 19.

Luce died of a coronary occlusion on February 28, 1967 in Phoenix, Arizona. He was 68.^[11] At his death, he was said to be worth $100 million in Time Inc. stock.^[12] Most of his fortune went to the Henry Luce Foundation.^[10]

Legacy

He was honored by the United States Postal Service with a 32¢ Great Americans series (1980–2000) postage stamp.^[13] Luce was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame.^[14]

Henry Luce Foundation

The Henry Luce Foundation, Inc. is a private, nonprofit organization incorporated in New York. It was established in 1936 by Henry Luce in his thirties. His son Henry III served as its chairman and chief executive for many years.^[10][15]