Harrison, Gilbert A

Editor and publisher. Full name: Gilbert Avery Harrison. Born 1915. Died 2008.

From the description of Gilbert A. Harrison papers, 1902-1978 (bulk 1960-1975). (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 71014549

Gilbert A. Harrison (1915-2008), publisher and biographer.

From the description of Gilbert A. Harrison papers relating to Thornton Wilder, 1956-1985. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 702202059

Gilbert Harrison, UCLA alumnus and former editor-in-chief of The new republic magazine, began corresponding with Gertrude Stein in 1933, and met her at a lecture in Pasadena, CA, in 1934; Harrison visited Stein and Alice B. Toklas at their home in France in 1937, when Stein presented him with the typescript of The autobiography of Alice B. Toklas; Harrison continued to correspond with Stein until her death in 1947, and maintained a friendship with Toklas until her death in 1967.

From the description of Collection of material by and relating to Gertrude Stein, 1922-1984. (University of California, Los Angeles). WorldCat record id: 39383982

Gilbert Avery Harrison (1915-2008) was an alumnus of UCLA, former editor of the California Daily Bruin, former editor and publisher of the Washington-based publication, The new republic, author of A timeless affair: the life of Anita McCormick Blaine (1979) and The enthusiast: a life of Thornton Wilder (1983), and editor of Gertrude Stein's America (1965) and The critic as artist (1972). Born on May 18, 1915 in Detroit, Michigan, Harrison was one of 3 children to Samuel and Mabel Wolfe Harrison. He studied psychology at UCLA and served as editor of the campus newspaper, the California Daily Bruin. While working at the Bruin, he cultivated a number of friendships with faculty members, such as Kate Gordon (former acting head of the Psychology department), Carolyn Fisher (Psychology Department), and Provost Ernest Moore, who later married Kate Gordon. During his time at UCLA, he began corresponding with Gertrude Stein with whom he remained in contact until her death in 1947. (Harrison's collection of Stein materials is also housed at UCLA.) Harrison graduated with a B.A. in 1937. After graduating, he joined the University Religious Conference, which promoted inter-religious tolerance. In 1941, he met Eleanor Roosevelt who enlisted him as chairman of the youth division of the Office of Civilian Defense in Washington. After a year in Washington, he joined the Army and fought in WWII. After the war, he joined the American Veterans Committee and became national chairman in 1948. In 1953, Harrison and his wife bought The new republic, an intellectual and liberal political journal that was initially founded in 1914 as part of Woodrow Wilson's world peace initiative. In 1963, Harrison received a George Polk award for his revitalization of The new republic. Under his aegis, from 1953 through 1974, The new republic was an influential publication and a strong supporter of the civil rights movement. Although it initially supported the Vietnam War, it later strongly opposed it, repeatedly criticizing the policies of Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon. The new republic featured the work of prominent journalists such as Walter Pincus, Stanley Karnow, John Osborne, Richard Strout, Doris Grumbach, Stanley Kauffman and James Ridgeway. At its peak under Harrison, the publication's circulation reached 100,000. In 1974, he sold The new republic to Martin Peretz, a lecturer at Harvard. During the same year, he sold Liveright Publishing which he had acquired in 1969. In 1979, Harrison published his wife's biography (she had passed away in 1977), and published the biography of her grandmother in 1983. On January 3, 2008, Harrison passed away of congestive heart failure in Arizona at the age of 92.

From the description of Papers, 1901-1966 bulk, 1934-1936. (University of California, Los Angeles). WorldCat record id: 226970145