biography
| name: |
Bok, Edward (William)
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1863–1930)
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| biography:
| Editor and writer, born in den Helder, The Netherlands. Emigrating to Brooklyn, New York, with his struggling family in 1870, he left school at age 13 to help out, doing office work, writing reviews for the Brooklyn Eagle, and eventually editing a church magazine. In 1884 he jointly started a syndicate that sold women's features to newspapers, and also distributed literary pieces of his own. In 1889 he was hired by Cyrus H K Curtis (whose daughter he later married) as editor of the Ladies' Home Journal. During his 30-year tenure he acquired top writers, from Rudyard Kipling to Theodore Roosevelt, and developed innovative features and services to readers, displaying an intuitive sense for his audience's interests. By 1900 the Ladies' Home Journal had the highest circulation of any US magazine. Having accumulated a personal fortune, he retired in 1919 and devoted himself to writing and philanthropy. His autobiography, The Americanization of Edward Bok (1920), was a best-seller and won a Pulitzer Prize. |
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