Adolph Simon Ochs (b. March 12, 1858–April 8, 1935) was an American newspaper publisher and former owner of The New York Times and The Chattanooga Times (now the Chattanooga Times Free Press).
Ochs was born to German-Jewish immigrants, Julius and Bertha Levy Ochs, in Cincinnati, Ohio. The family moved south to Knoxville, Tennessee due to his mother's sympathies during the Civil War. Julius sided with the Union during the war, but it didn't separate the household. Ochs began his newspaper career there at age 11, leaving grammar school to become an apprentice typesetter, known in that era as a "printer's devil". He worked at the Knoxville Chronicle under Captain William Rule, the editor who became his mentor. His siblings also worked at the newspaper to supplement their father's income, a lay rabbi for Knoxville's small Jewish community. The Knoxville Chronicle was the only Republican, pro-Reconstruction, newspaper in the city, but Ochs counted Father Ryan, the Poet-Priest of the Confederacy, among his customers.1
At the age of 19, he borrowed $250 to purchase a controlling interest in The Chattanooga Times, becoming its publisher. In 1896, at the age of 36, he again borrowed money to purchase The New York Times, a money-losing newspaper that had a wide range of competitors in New York City. In 1904, he hired Carr Van Anda as his managing editor. Their focus on objective news reporting, in a time when newspapers were openly and highly partisan, and a well-timed price decrease (from 3 cents per issue to 1 cent) led to its rescue from near oblivion. The paper's readership increased from 9,000 at the time of his purchase to 780,000 by the 1920s.
In 1904, Ochs moved the Times to a newly-built building on Longacre Square in Manhattan, which the City of New York then renamed as Times Square. On New Year's Eve 1904, Ochs had pyrotechnists illuminate his new building at One Times Square with a fireworks show from street level.
One of his nephews, Julius Ochs Adler, worked at the Times for more than 40 years, becoming general manager in 1935, after Ochs died. Another, John Bertram Oakes, the son of his brother George Washington Ochs Oakes, became editorial page editor of the Times' editorial page in 1961, which he edited until 1976.
Ochs was active in the early years of the Anti-Defamation League, serving as an executive board member, and using his influence as publisher of the New York Times to convince other newspapers nationwide to cease the unjustified caricaturing and lampooning of Jews in the American press.
References
The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family behind The New York Times, Susan E. Tifft and Alex S. Jones, Little, Brown and Company, 1999.
