Samuel I. Newhouse Sr.
Publishing executive
Born: May 24, 1895, in New York City
Died: Aug. 29, 1979, in New York City
Grew up in: Bayonne, New Jersey
New Jersey Hall of Fame, Class of 2012: Enterprise
New Jersey has no greater embodiment of the classic American rags-to-riches story than Samuel Newhouse.
Born Solomon Isadore Neuhaus in a Lower East Side tenement in Manhattan, Newhouse was the eldest son of Meier and Rose Neuhaus, impoverished Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. When Newhouse was a boy, the family moved to Avenue C and 21st Street in Bayonne. His father was sickly, so Newhouse’s mother peddled linens to support the family.
By the time he was 13, Newhouse had finished high school and become the family breadwinner, working as an office boy for a Bayonne lawyer and police court judge named Hyman Lazarus. Assigned to close a money-losing newspaper, the Bayonne Times, which was partially owned by Lazarus, Newhouse suggested he be allowed to manage the paper. Lazarus gave him a shot and Newhouse, still a teenager, personally solicited new advertisers, guided the paper back to profitability, and was given a share of the ownership.
Newhouse enrolled for night classes at the New Jersey Law School (now Rutgers School of Law) and earned his law degree. He practiced law only briefly, turning his attention instead to buying other failing newspapers. In 1922, using his honeymoon savings, he purchased the Staten Island Advance in partnership with Lazarus. Within two years, he was the sole owner of the paper, which he had returned to profitability.
The young entrepreneur was just getting started. In 1935, Newhouse purchased the Newark Ledger. Four years later, he added the Newark Star Eagle to his portfolio. Merging the two, he created the Newark Star-Ledger, which grew into New Jersey’s largest circulation newspaper. The tactic was typical for Newhouse, who often purchased multiple papers in a community, then merged them, creating a monopoly.
Other major acquisitions over the next 40 years included the Jersey Journal; the Portland Oregonian; the St. Louis Globe-Democrat; the Cleveland Plain-Dealer; multiple papers in Syracuse, New York, and New Orleans; and the Booth chain of newspaper in Michigan, which included the Sunday supplement Parade.
In 1959, Newhouse took a giant leap into the magazine business, purchasing Conde Nast Publications, owners of Vogue, House & Garden, and Glamour. He next bought another magazine publisher, Street & Smith, and merged it into Conde Nast.
Most of Newhouse’s assets were held under Advance Publications, the company he launched in 1949. His two sons, Samuel I. Newhouse Jr. (known as Si Newhouse) and Donald Newhouse, later became chairman and president of Advance, respectively.
In addition to his publishing empire, Samuel Newhouse’s legacy includes the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, and the S.I. Newhouse Center for Law and Justice at Rutgers School of Law-Newark.