Patterson, Alicia Brooks 1906-1963

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PATTERSON, Alicia Brooks 1906-1963

PERSONAL: Born October 15, 1906, in Chicago, IL; died due to complications following ulcer surgery, July 12, 1963; daughter of Joseph Medill (a journalist and newspaper publisher) and Alice Patterson; married James Simpson, Jr., 1927 (divorced, 1928); married Joseph W. Brooks, 1931 (divorced, 1939); married Harry Frank Guggenheim, 1939.

CAREER: New York Daily News, New York, NY, reporter, 1926; Newsday, New York, NY, editor and publisher, 1940-63.

WRITINGS:

Author of numerous articles and editorials for New York Daily News and Newsday. Also contributor of articles to Bulletin of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and Saturday Evening Post.

SIDELIGHTS: When Harry Guggenheim purchased a collection of equipment to start a newspaper for his wife to run, he did so with the intention of "keep[ing] her busy and out of trouble," according to Robert F. Keeler. Writing in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Keeler noted that very few people anticipated the eventual success of Newsday under the leadership of Alicia Brooks Patterson, including her father, an extremely successful newspaper publisher in his own right, and S. I. Newhouse, who sold the original equipment to Guggenheim and referred to Newsday as "Alicia's toy." Contrary to expectations, Patterson was responsible for developing Newsday into a successful newspaper, in direct competition with the New York Times.

Keeler noted that Patterson had a "less-than-serious" reputation. After being fired by her father after a short stay at the New York Daily News, Patterson spent much of the early part of her life traveling and engaging herself in a variety of activities, such as flying and hunting. Her marriage to Guggenheim, however, presented her with the opportunity to re-enter the world of newspaper publishing. At his urging, Patterson became the editor/publisher of Newsday. Keeler mentioned that Patterson had "terrible inferiority feelings" about working in journalism again: her father ran the Daily News, his cousin, Robert McCormick, ran the Chicago Tribune, and his sister, Cissy Patterson, owned the Washington Times-Herald. Nonetheless, supported by her new husband, Newsday began publication on September 3, 1940.

Over the course of the next twenty-three years, News-day enjoyed a great deal of growth and success. Keeler credited much of Long Island's growth to Patterson's leadership of Newsday. He noted that, following World War II, Alan Hathaway, the managing editor of News-day, led a "crusade" to provide adequate housing for veterans in New York City. Joining forces with a developer, Levitt and Sons, Hathaway proposed the construction of cheap, mass-produced homes built on cement slabs, without basements. The town in which they proposed to do this, Hempstead, required basements in all new homes; after an editorial campaign by Newsday, Hempstead changed the ordinance and a new community, called Levittown, emerged, prompting the growth of the Long Island region. This in turn led to an increase in the circulation of Newsday, which became an outlet for all the merchants who wanted to sell homes, appliances, and cars to all of the new residents moving into the area. Keeler also credited Patterson with influencing the "shape of Long Island" through her editorial efforts in Newsday that prevented plans for a road the length of Fire Island. Once Patterson was persuaded to not support the plan, Keeler stated that the idea was "essentially dead."

Though she often found herself in conflict with her husband over editorial philosophy, especially with regard to political issues, Patterson managed to build Newsday into a major New York City paper. Keeler argued that "as a journalist she had excellent instincts and a fine sense of a good story." One of her former editors, Jack Mann, stated that she was "the greatest newspaperman" he had ever known.