Wilder Hobson

Infobox Person
name = Wilder Hobson


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birth_date = 1906
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death_date = 1965
death_place = Princeton, New Jersey
death_cause = Gastrointestinal hemorrhage
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education =Yale (1924-1928)
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occupation = magazine editor
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spouse = Peggy Hobson
Verna Harriman Hobson (married 1945-1965)
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Wilder Hobson (1906-1965) was an American writer and editor for "TIME" (1930s-1940s), "FORTUNE" (1940s), "Harper's Bazaar" (1950s), and "Newsweek" (1960s) magazines. He was also a competent musician (trombone), author of an history of American jazz, and long-time contributor to "Saturday Review" (1940s, 1950s, 1960s) magazine. Also, he served on the planning committee of the Institute of Jazz Studies. [cite news
title = Milestones
publisher = TIME
date = June 5, 1964
url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,938644,00.html]

Life

Early Years

Born in 1906, Hobson attended Yale University. There, he was a roomate of Dwight Macdonald, classmate of James Agee, and a 1928 member of Scroll and Key. [cite news
title = Slaves for Sale
publisher = TIME
date = May 4, 1931
url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,741576,00.html
accessdate =2008-09-13]

Famed American documentary photographer Walker Evans captured Hobson and Agee on a Long Island beach during the summer of 1937, when Evans and Agee were visiting Hobson and his first wife Peggy. [cite book
last = Rathbone
first = Belinda
title = Walker Evans: A Biography
publisher = Houghton Mifflin
date = 1995
pages = p 150
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=zIfumzouw3UC&pg=RA1-PA249&lpg=RA1-PA249&dq=%22Wilder+Hobson%22&source=web&ots=GKkc51OYyB&sig=uoWbFvGGWavAQDBijiaCujz0R8Q&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=9&ct=result#PRA1-PA150,M1
id = ISBN 0618056726, 9780618056729] (The Metropolitan Museum of Art houses those photos, which are also available online -- see "Images," below.)

Magazines

Hobson wrote for "TIME" in the 1930s and 1940s. [cite book
last = Rathbone
first = Belinda
title = Walker Evans: A Biography
publisher = Houghton Mifflin
date = 1995
pages = p 144
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=zIfumzouw3UC&pg=RA1-PA249&lpg=RA1-PA249&dq=%22Wilder+Hobson%22&source=web&ots=GKkc51OYyB&sig=uoWbFvGGWavAQDBijiaCujz0R8Q&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=9&ct=result#PRA1-PA144,M1
id = ISBN 0618056726, 9780618056729] After covering a coal strike during the 1930s, he helped lead unionization at "Time" and became the first head of "Time"'s Newspaper Guild branch. [cite news
last = Vanderlan
first = Robert
title = "Telling the Truth in the Headquarters of Lying": Intellectuals Writing for Fortune Magazine in the 1930s
publisher = Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture
date = 2008
id = ISSN 1547-4348
url = http://reconstruction.eserver.org/081/vanderlan.shtml
accessdate =2008-09-13]

In October 1942, Hobson succeeded the late Calvin Fixx as assistant editor to Whittaker Chambers, then editor of Arts & Entertainment. Other writers working for Chambers included: novelist Nigel Dennis, future New York Times Book Review editor Harvey Breit, and poets Howard Moss and Weldon Kees. [cite book
last = Tanenhaus
first = Sam
title = Whittaker Chambers: A Biography
publisher = Random House
date = 1997
pages = pp. 174-175
id = ISBN 978-0394585598] [cite book
last = Reidel
first = James
title = 'Vanished Act: The Life and Art of Weldon Kees
publisher = University of Nebraska Press
date = 2007
pages = p 121
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=eV1AENEcMlAC&pg=PA237&lpg=PA237&dq=%22wilder+hobson%22+%22harper's+bazaar%22&source=web&ots=QgOj1XG5i6&sig=RU2i9KnyMeb0PkjClrRqwLFb-LU&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result#PPA121,M1
id = ISBN 0803259778, 9780803259775] Hobson worked amidst the struggle between Soviet-sympathizing and anti-Communist staffers at "TIME". Chambers and Willi Schlamm led the anti-Communist camp (and both later joined the founding editorial board of William F. Buckley, Jr.'s National Review). Theodore H. White and Richad Lauterbach led the pro-Soviet camp. "TIME" founder Henry R. Luce came to support the anti-Communist camp before the end of World War II in 1945. [cite book
last = Herzstein
first = Robert E.
title = Henry R. Luce, Time, and the American Crusade in Asia
publisher = Cambridge University Press
date = 2005
pages = pp 42-43
id = ISBN 9780521835770] Hobson, however, rode out the storm and even managed to write two books at "TIME": a historical study called "American Jazz Music" (1939 -- see "Music," below) and a novel called "All Summer Long" (1945).

When Chambers received a promotion to senior editor in September 1943 and then joined "TIME"'s senior editorial group in December 1932, Hobson succeeded to the Arts & Entertainment section. [cite book
last = Tanenhaus
first = Sam
title = Whittaker Chambers: A Biography
publisher = Random House
date = 1997
pages = p 175
id = ISBN 978-0394585598] He hired friend Walker Evans to write reviews first on Film and then on Art (1943-1945). [cite book
last = Rathbone
first = Belinda
title = Walker Evans: A Biography
publisher = Houghton Mifflin
date = 1995
pages = p 190
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=zIfumzouw3UC&pg=RA1-PA249&lpg=RA1-PA249&dq=%22Wilder+Hobson%22&source=web&ots=GKkc51OYyB&sig=uoWbFvGGWavAQDBijiaCujz0R8Q&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=9&ct=result#PRA1-PA190,M1
id = ISBN 0618056726, 9780618056729]

In 1946, Hobson moved to editorial board of "Fortune", [cite book
last = Rathbone
first = Belinda
title = Walker Evans: A Biography
publisher = Houghton Mifflin
date = 1995
pages = p 199
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=zIfumzouw3UC&pg=RA1-PA249&lpg=RA1-PA249&dq=%22Wilder+Hobson%22&source=web&ots=GKkc51OYyB&sig=uoWbFvGGWavAQDBijiaCujz0R8Q&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=9&ct=result#PRA1-PA199,M1
id = ISBN 0618056726, 9780618056729] where he worked until severe writer's block caused him to resign. [cite book
last = Rathbone
first = Belinda
title = Walker Evans: A Biography
publisher = Houghton Mifflin
date = 1995
pages = p 144
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=zIfumzouw3UC&pg=RA1-PA249&lpg=RA1-PA249&dq=%22Wilder+Hobson%22&source=web&ots=GKkc51OYyB&sig=uoWbFvGGWavAQDBijiaCujz0R8Q&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=9&ct=result#PRA1-PA144,M1
id = ISBN 0618056726, 9780618056729]

In November 1950, Hobson became managing editor of "Harper's Bazaar" (then with a ciruculation of 340,605), replacing Frances MacFadden, who retired after 18 years in that position. [cite news
title = For the Carriage Trade
publisher = TIME
date = November 13, 1950
url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,821389,00.html
accessdate =2008-09-13]

Later, Hobson joined "Newsweek", where he worked for a decade.

Hobson become a contributor to the (now defunct) "Saturday Review" during the late 1940s, the 1950s, and into the 1960s.

Later and Life of Verna Hobson

Hobson was a heavy alcoholic and died at the age of 59 in 1965 of gastrointestinal hemorrhage in Princeton, New Jersey. [cite news
title = Milestones
publisher = TIME
date = June 5, 1964
url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,938644,00.html] [cite book
last = Rathbone
first = Belinda
title = Walker Evans: A Biography
publisher = Houghton Mifflin
date = 1995
pages = p 249
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=zIfumzouw3UC&pg=RA1-PA249&lpg=RA1-PA249&dq=%22Wilder+Hobson%22&source=web&ots=GKkc51OYyB&sig=uoWbFvGGWavAQDBijiaCujz0R8Q&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=9&ct=result#PRA1-PA249,M1
id = ISBN 0618056726, 9780618056729]

Hobson married his second wife, Verna Harrison (1923-2004), in the mid-1940s after meeting at "TIME". At first they lived in Manhattan but moved to Princeton. Each year, they summered at on Squirrel Island, Maine while playing in the Hennessy Five Star Orchestra. Mrs. Hobson worked 1954-1966 as secretary to Robert Oppenheimer, then director of the Institute for Advanced Study. After her husband's death in 1964, she moved to London and worked first for the American Association of University Women and then for the London branch of Robert Matthew, Johnson-Marshall, architects. In 1976, she returned to America and settled in New Gloucester, Maine, working for the independent weekly "New Gloucester News" and also helping to re-establish "The Squirrel Island Squid". In 1998, she became a photographic stringer for "The Lewiston Sun". In 2001, she moved to New Rochelle, New York, to live with her son Archie's family. Surrounded by family and friends, Verna Harrison Hobson died in hospice care on April 13, 2004. [cite news
title = Milestones
publisher = Boothbay Register
date = May 13, 2004
url = http://boothbayregister.maine.com/2004-05-13/obituaries.html]

Music

In 1939, Hobson became the second American to write a major book on jazz, "American Jazz Music". A year earlier, colleague Winthrop Sargeant, staff writer at "Life" in 1938. Sargeant believed that the "swing" in jazz derived from complex African multi-rhythms adapted to relatively simple Western music. Hobson and Sargeant--both amateur, though well informed, jazz enthusiast--believed that jazz came from New Orleans bordellos, whereas in the 1930s European scholars like Robert Goffin of Belgium and Hugues Panassié of France had already ascribed (correctly) that jazz was a "vernacular-based art." [cite news
title = "Those Frenchmen Got a Hellova Nerve": European Jazz Discography and the Creation of a New Art Music, 1932-1976
publisher = NOVA Southeastern University
date = 2005
url = http://www.nova.edu/library/about/events/2005/jazz05notes.html
accessdate =2008-09-13]

Wilder's close ancestors were Maine "Downeasters" and he played summers on Squirrel Island in Boothbay Harbor with the Hennessy Five-Star Orchestra, which slide-trombonist Wilder joined in 1921 at age 15. Wilder's second wife Verna later became a tuba player. Family members still return, where as of 2001 the Hennessy band was "still alive and well." Daughter Eliza Hobson became a jazz disc jockey and broadcast journalist as well as playing piano and guitar. [cite news
title = Legacy of jazz author, musician plays on
publisher = Portsmouth Herald
date = 2001
url = http://archive.seacoastonline.com/2001news/1_6a.htm
accessdate =2008-09-13] A biography of "TIME" colleague Weldon Kees includes a reminiscence of Kees on piano and Hobson on trombone in the Greenwich Village home of James Agee's sister. [cite book
last = Reidel
first = James
title = 'Vanished Act: The Life and Art of Weldon Kees
publisher = University of Nebraska Press
date = 2007
pages = p 141
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=eV1AENEcMlAC&pg=PA237&lpg=PA237&dq=%22wilder+hobson%22+%22harper's+bazaar%22&source=web&ots=QgOj1XG5i6&sig=RU2i9KnyMeb0PkjClrRqwLFb-LU&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result#PPA141,M1
id = ISBN 0803259778, 9780803259775]

Publications

Books

* "American Jazz Music". (NY: W.W. Norton, [http://lccn.loc.gov/39027321 1939] , republished in [http://lccn.loc.gov/2004560040 1941] and 1976)
* "All Summer Long". (New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, [http://lccn.loc.gov/45008644 1945] ) ( [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,776122,00.html review in "TIME"] )

Articles

* " [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,760995,00.html Hobson on Jazz] ," "TIME", April 10, 1939
* " [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,761087,00.html Clarinetist's Progress] ," "TIME", April 17, 1939
* "An Album of Chinese Paintings," "LIFE", October 11, 1943, 7 pp
* "The Business Suit - A short and possibly tactless essay on the costuming of American enterprise," "Fortune", July 1948, illustrated by Bernarda Bryson
* "The Gospel Truth," "down beat", May 30, 1968. vol. 35, p. 19. (posthumous)

Photos

* [http://www.metmuseum.org/search/iquery.asp?redirect&target=%2FWorks_of_Art%2Fcollection_database%2FWilder_Hobson_Long_island_new_york_Walker_evans%2Fobjectview.aspx%3FOID%3D190025859%26collID%3D19%26dd1%3D19&tid=$__rowPrefixId0__$r3&qid=$__queryId__$&vid=$__visitId__$&feature=sitemap+url Metropolitan Museum of Art] - photo of Wilder Hobson by Walker Evans in 1937 (one of 30 in collection)
* [http://archive.seacoastonline.com/2001news/1_6a.htm Portsmouth Herald] - Wilder Hobson as part of the Hennessy Five Star Orchestra on Squirrel Island in Booth Bay Harbor, Maine

Notes

ources

* Herzstein, Robert E. "Henry R. Luce, Time, and the American Crusade in Asia" (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005). ISBN 9780521835770
* Rathbone, Belinda. Walker Evans: A Biography (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Books, 1995). ISBN 9780618056729
* Reidel, James. "Vanished Act: The Life and Art of Weldon Kees'. (University of Nebraska Press, 2007). ISBN 9780803259775
* Tanenhaus, Sam. "Whittaker Chambers: A Biography" (New York: Random House, 1997). ISBN 978-0394585598.
* [http://www.downbeat.com/ down beat] magazine