Mark Sullivan

Z thewoodcraft.org

Mark Sullivan (10.9.1874 Avindale, Pensylvania, USA – 13.8.1952 West Chester, Pensylvania, USA) byl žurnalista, a člen The New York Zoological Society[1], který v letech 1916–8? vykonával funkci sekretáře The Woodcraft League of America. Setona pravděpodobně poznal přes Williama T. Hornadaye. Přátelil se také s Idou M. Tarbellovou, která také patřila mezi členy národního sněmu WLA (National council WLA).

R. 1900 absolvoval Harvardskou universitu v Cambridge, Mass. Roku 1904 působil v redakci Ladies Home Journal, v následujícím roce 1905 pracoval pro magazín McClure's. Pak zakotvil jako editor v Collier's magazine (1906–1919). V letech 1919–22 byl korespondentem pro New York Evening Post a nakonec zakotvil v redakci New York Tribune (1923–52).

Jako žurnalista se specializoval na politické komentáře[2] a zřejmě šel svými názory dost proti proudu, takže díky tomu po něm dnes neštěkne ani pes. Kritizoval kupř. New Deal, soubor zákoných opatření z let 1933–5 který měl vytáhnout USA z krize (byl zrušen rozhodnutím Nejvyššího soudu USA) a vystupoval i proti americkému angažmá v zámoří.

Během let 1926–35 postupně vydal monumentální 6 svazkové dílo pod souborným názvem Our times : the United States 1900-1925, Charles Scribner’s Sons. New York. 1930.[3]

Roku 1938 vydal v nakladatelství Doran & Co.knihu The Education of An American[4]

Údajně od sobě později říkal: „Já se nezměnil, změnil se svět.“


  1. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015049862579?urlappend=%3Bseq=178
  2. Např. do týdeníku Collier's[1],[2],[3]
  3. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/80376365
  4. Harold S. Wilson: McClure's Magazine and the Muckrakers. Princeton University Press. Princetown, New Jersey, USA. 1970 p.130

Mark Sullivan was a titan of twentieth century journalism who has faded into obscurity. Born on a farm in Chester County, Pennsylvania, in 1874, he was only in his late teens when he bought an interest in a local newspaper, the Phoenixville Republican, for $300. The profits from this investment funded his education at Harvard, where he earned bachelor's and law degrees. In the first decade of the century he was a muckraker in the mold of Ida Tarbell and Lincoln Steffens. His 1904 exposé on patent medicine quacks for Ladies' Home Journal helped stoke the public outrage that resulted in the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act two years later. In his later years, however, he strayed considerably from his progressive roots. In his twice-weekly syndicated column, Sullivan railed against the New Deal and American engagement overseas. Roosevelt's advisors were too "pink." Of Europe, he wrote, "let her work out her own salvation." He was a "good old days" journalist who seemed to oppose anything modern. He was a close friend of Herbert Hoover, and, the Washington Post noted, "his high collar, like Mr. Hoover's, was a symbol of conservatism." Sullivan himself denied he'd undergone a transformation. "I haven't changed," he liked to say; "the world changed." He died in 1952, in the same farmhouse he was born in.