Newhouse, Samuel Irving

Newhouse, Samuel Irving, 1895–1979, American newspaper and magazine publisher, b. New York City as Solomon Neuhaus, known generally as Sam. From 1922 to the 1970s, his Advance Publications acquired 31 dailies in 22 cities, including the Newark Star Ledger, New Orleans Times-Picayune, and Cleveland Plain Dealer, often taking financially troubled newspapers and making them fiscally sound while giving the papers' editors a relatively free hand. He also controlled such magazines as Vogue, House and Garden, and Mademoiselle (through Condé Nast), and several radio stations and cable-television systems.

S(amuel) I(rving) Newhouse, Jr., 1927–2017, dropped out of Syracuse Univ. to work in on his father's newspapers. In 1959 he began working at Condé Nast, becoming its chairman in 1975. Over the decades he acquired GQ, The New Yorker, Architectural Digest, Women's Wear Daily, and many other publications; he also revived Vanity Fair. His talented editors included Diana Vreeland and Anna Wintour at Vogue, Graydon Carter at Vanity Fair, and Tina Brown and David Remnick at The New Yorker. When magazine and newspaper revenues dropped in the early 21st cent., Newhouse closed some dozen publications, and purchased (2006) Reddit.com. He became chairman emeritus in 2016.

See biography of the son by C. Felsenthal (1998).

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