Turner Catledge
Encyclopedia
Turner Catledge was an American journalist, best known for his work at The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

. He was Managing Editor from 1952-1964, at which time he became the paper's first Executive Editor. After his retirement in 1968, he served briefly on the board of the New York Times company as a vice president. He published his autobiography, My Life and The Times, in 1971.

Early life

Catledge was born on March 17, 1901 to his parents, Lee and Willie Catledge, and sister Bessie, on his grandfather’s 900 acres (3.6 km²) farm in Ackerman, Mississippi
Ackerman, Mississippi
Ackerman is a town in Choctaw County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 1,696 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Choctaw County.It is named for an early landowner.-Geography:Ackerman is located at ....

. When he was three, his family moved to Philadelphia, Mississippi
Philadelphia, Mississippi
Philadelphia is a city in and the county seat of Neshoba County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 7,303 at the 2000 census.- History :...

; after graduating from Philadelphia High School in 1918, he enrolled at Mississippi A&M with a science major.

Career in journalism

Catledge's first news job was at fourteen years old for the Neshoba Democrat, setting type
Typesetting
Typesetting is the composition of text by means of types.Typesetting requires the prior process of designing a font and storing it in some manner...

. After college, the Democrat offered him another job but instead he became editor of the Tunica Times (Tunica, Mississippi
Tunica, Mississippi
Tunica is a town in Tunica County, Mississippi, United States, located near the Mississippi River. Until the early 1990s the town was one of the most impoverished places in the United States, semi-famous for the particularly deprived neighbourhood known as "Sugar Ditch Alley", named for the open...

) in 1922, and later managing editor and mechanical superintendent of the Tupelo Journal (Tupelo, Mississippi
Tupelo, Mississippi
Tupelo is the largest city in and the county seat of Lee County, Mississippi, United States. It is the seventh largest city in the state of Mississippi, smaller than Meridian, and larger than Greenville. As of the 2000 United States Census, the city's population was 34,211...

). At the Journal he campaigned against the Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...

, who were most active during this time period; in response, the Klan burned down the newspaper plant.

After Catledge lost his job due to the Tupelo Journal incident, he moved to Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....

; there, he worked for the Commercial Appeal, the city's daily newspaper.

Finally, in the spring of 1929, Catledge began working at The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, starting in the New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 bureau, until later when he began work in the company's Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

 bureau as a reporter for the U.S. House of Representatives.

Over the remainder of his career, he worked for the Times as managing editor, executive editor, and last as the company's vice president.

Family life

On March 19, 1931, Catledge married Mildred Turpin, with whom he had two children, Mildred Lee in 1932, and Ellen Douglas in 1936. They married at the Church of the Transfiguration in New York. In 1949, Catledge and wife Mildred divorce
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...

d; soon after, Catledge married widow
Widow
A widow is a woman whose spouse has died, while a widower is a man whose spouse has died. The state of having lost one's spouse to death is termed widowhood or occasionally viduity. The adjective form is widowed...

 Abby Ray Izard in December 1957.

Death

Turner Catledge died in 1983, age 82. A memorial service for Catledge was held June 28, 1983 at 11 A.M., in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...

.

In literature

  • The Broadway play, "The Girls in 509", by author Howard M. Teichmann, was dedicated to Turner Catledge:


To TURNER CATLEDGE, gentleman journalist, who nightly played his role faultlessly, whose behavior before, during, and after each performance was exemplary, and whose good humour and graciousness are deeply appreciated.
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