- Ely Jacques Kahn, Jr.
Ely Jacques Kahn, Jr. (
December 4 ,1916 –May 28 ,1994 ) was an American writer under the byline E.J. Kahn, Jr. with "The New Yorker " for five decades.Born in
New York City , he was the son of architectEly Jacques Kahn . He attended theHorace Mann School andHarvard University , where he took his B.A. in 1937. He was hired by The New Yorker in 1937 and his first byline appeared there in theApril 3 ,1937 issue. BeforeWorld War II , he was drafted and served in theU.S. Army from 1941 to 1945. His Army experience resulted in "The New Yorker" publishing thirty-nine of his pieces on Army life; they were later collected in book form.His long career with the magazine resulted in numerous books on such varied subjects as
Coca Cola ,Leslie McNair , theTrust Territory of the Pacific ,Harvard University ,Herbert Bayard Swope ,Frank Sinatra ,Dwayne O. Andreas ofArcher Daniels Midland , and the Postal Inspection Service. However his multi-part series ongrain , which was published in book form as "Staffs of Life" in 1985, was criticized by some as an example of the self-indulgent journalism that marked The New Yorker during the 1970s and '80s.He taught writing at
Columbia University from 1974 to 1977.His book "The New Yorker and Me" (New York: G.P. Putnam's, 1979) is a diary interspersed with memories of his life, the magazine, and its editor
William Shawn --who Kahn calls "The Iron Mouse." His 1987 diary was released as "Year of Change: More about the New Yorker and Me" (New York: Viking, 1988).Kahn's Books
*Army Life, 1942
*G. I. Jungle,1943
*McNair: Educator of an Army, 1945
*Fighting Divisions, 1945
*The Voice,1947 (Sinatra)
*Who, Me?, 1949
*The Peculiar War, 1952
*The Merry Partners: The Age and Stage of Harrigan and Hart, 1955
*The Big Drink: The Story ofCoca-Cola , 1960
*The A Reporter Here and There, 1961
*The Stragglers, 1962
*The World of Swope, 1964
*A Reporter inMicronesia , 1966
*The Separated People: A Look at ContemporarySouth Africa , 1968
*Harvard: Through Change and Through Storm, 1969
*TheBoston Underground Gourmet, 1972
*Fraud: The United States Postal Inspection Service and Some of the Fools and Knaves It Has Known, 1973
*The American People, 1973
*The China Hands: America's Foreign Service Officers and What Befell Them, 1975
*Georgia from Rabun Gap toTybee Light , 1978
*Far-Flung and Footloose, 1979
*The New Yorker and Me, 1979
*Jock: The Life and Times ofJohn Hay Whitney , 1981
*The Staffs of Life, 1985
*The Problem Solvers: A History ofArthur D. Little , Inc., 1986
*Year of Change: More about the New Yorker and Me, 1988.
*Supermarketer to the World: The Story ofDwayne Andreas , 1991.
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