S.S. McClure Company (New York, N.Y.)

The publishing enterprises of Samuel Sidney McClure are an important facet of early twentieth-century American journalism. The McClure Syndicate, started by Samuel Sidney McClure in 1884, was the first successful company of its kind, and was largely responsible for introducing many American and British writers to a national public. His later venture, McClure's Magazine, contained the influential "muckraking" articles of Ida Tarbell, Ray Stannard Baker, and Lincoln Steffens; it also had the distinction of promoting the then-unknown writer, Willa Cather.

From the description of McClure Publishing Company archives, 1878-1952. (University of Delaware Library). WorldCat record id: 700048629

The publishing enterprises of Samuel Sidney McClure are an important facet of early twentieth-century American journalism. The McClure Syndicate, started by Samuel Sidney McClure in 1884, was the first successful company of its kind, and was largely responsible for introducing many American and British writers to a national public. His later venture, McClure's Magazine, contained the influential "muckraking" articles of Ida Tarbell, Ray Stannard Baker, and Lincoln Steffens; it also had the distinction of promoting the then-unknown writer, Willa Cather. Although S.S. McClure's tenuous business competency would cause him to lose control over these ventures in the early part of the twentieth century, other members of his family, most notably his cousin, Henry Herbert McClure (d. 1938), were able to maintain a more steady career in the publishing world through the 1930s.

Samuel Sidney McClure was born in County Antrim, Ireland, on February 17, 1857. When he was nine years old, his widowed mother brought him and his two younger brothers to the United States, where they settled in Indiana. McClure lived his early years in poverty, working his way through high school and college, and eventually graduating in 1882 from Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. While in college, he was able to earn some money by establishing an intercollegiate news bulletin and publishing a collection of writings from western college newspapers.

After graduating from Knox, McClure moved to Boston, where he edited a bicycling magazine, The Wheelman, from 1882 to 1884. In 1883, he married Harriet Hurd, the daughter of his Latin professor at Knox, despite the strong objections of her family. The next year, McClure accepted a job at the De Vinne printing house in New York City. But he was far from an obedient, model employee, and consequently, his employment at the press was brief. The same was true for his next position, an editorial assistant for The Century .

Out of work in 1884, he decided to start McClure's Syndicate, which would become America's first profitable literary syndicate. The syndicate would buy authors' works for a price of around one hundred and fifty dollars and then sell the right to print them to various newspapers across the country for five dollars apiece. Although his company lost money the first few years of operation, it was eventually able to turn a modest profit. McClure's Syndicate would alter the country's newspapers and the country's fiction, by distributing and promoting such American writers as Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, Joel Chandler Harris, and Sarah Orne Jewett. The firm also brought several English authors to the American reading public, including Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Arthur Conan Doyle.

Two years after its inception, McClure's college friend, John Sanborn Phillips, joined the syndicate's staff. In 1894, the two men decided to start McClure's Magazine, a monthly specializing in well-researched and well written articles and new fiction. At 15 cents an issue, it was less than half the price of competitors like Harpers or the Atlantic Monthly . Again, the project was slow to garner a profit, but by 1898, the magazine had a circulation of 400,000. In January of 1902, McClure's began publishing articles intent on exposing corruption in corporations and city governments. These included, most notably, Ida Tarbell's history of the Standard Oil Company, Lincoln Steffens' "Shame of the Cities" series, and Ray Stannard Baker's examination of the United Mine Workers, all of which appeared in 1902. This style of journalism, which Theodore Roosevelt would pejoratively term "muckraking" three years later, became the magazine's lasting legacy.

S.S. McClure had grandiose ideas, but little business sense. Phillips was able to keep the two companies running effectively, but in 1906, he and several staff members of McClure's, including Tarbell, Steffens, Baker, and McClure's cousin, Henry Herbert McClure, had lost faith in their founder for a variety of reasons, including his inability or unwillingness to understand the financial realities of his businesses and his repeated marital infidelities which threatened to clash with the magazine's image of moral righteousness. While his former associates founded the American Magazine, S.S. McClure was able to keep control over his syndicate and magazine, the latter with Willa Cather as managing editor, until 1912, when he lost control of the business' interests.

In his later life, S.S. McClure would continuously attempt to regain control of a magazine, but except for a brief interval from 1922–1925, when he was reinstated as editor of McClure's, he repeatedly failed to do so. He turned his attention to writing, penning several articles for magazines and newspapers. He also wrote tracts on political theory, and in 1917, he published Obstacles to Peace, a book about World War I. From 1926 to 1927, intrigued by Mussolini, he studied fascism in Italy. The last years of his life were spent almost completely out of the public eye. In 1945, he gained some public notice when he was awarded the Order of Merit by the National Institute of Arts and Letters. He died on March 21, 1949.

Other members of the McClure family played a role in S.S. McClure's publishing enterprises. His brother, Robert McClure (d. 1914), worked in the McClure's Syndicate's London office, and his other brothers, Thomas and John, also worked briefly in his company. But the other McClure who had significant success in publishing was Henry Herbert McClure, S.S. McClure's cousin, who joined the staff of the McClure's Syndicate in 1899. It was H.H. McClure who brought Willa Cather's writings to his cousin's attention, after she had been repeatedly rejected by the editors of McClure's . He left his position of managing editor during the mass resignations in 1906 and joined the staff of American Magazine with the other former McClure employees. That same year, he began his own syndicate business, H.H. McClure and Co., where he employed his brother, E.S. McClure. After resigning his interest in the syndicate in 1912, he worked as the general manager for The Associated Newspapers until 1930. He died on November 24, 1938.

Cather, Willa. The Autobiography of S.S. McClure. Lincoln; London: University of Nebraska Press, 1997. "Henry H. McClure, Syndicated News." New York Times, 25 Nov., 1938: 23. Lyon, Peter. Success Story: The Life and Times of S.S. McClure. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1963. "S.S. M'Clure Dead: Publisher was 92." New York Times, 23 Mar., 1949: 27.

From the guide to the McClure Publishing Company archives, 1878–1952, (University of Delaware Library - Special Collections)