Henry Luce - Life and Career

Life and Career

Luce, known to his friends as "Father Time," was born in Tengchow, China, on April 3, 1898, the son of Elizabeth Middleton and Henry Winters Luce, who was a Presbyterian missionary. He received his education in various Chinese and English boarding schools including the China Inland Mission Chefoo School. He was sent to the U.S. at the age of 15 to attend the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut, followed by Yale College.

Luce edited the Hotchkiss Literary Monthly. In 1920, he graduated from Yale College, where he was a member of Alpha Delta Phi and Skull and Bones. At Hotchkiss, he first met Briton Hadden, who would become a lifelong partner. At the time, Hadden served as editor-in-chief of the school newspaper. Luce worked as an assistant managing editor. The two continued to work together at Yale, with Hadden as chairman and Luce as managing editor of The Yale Daily News.

Luce, recalling his relationship with Hadden, said, "Somehow, despite the greatest differences in temperaments and even in interests, we had to work together. We were an organization. At the center of our lives — our job, our function — at that point everything we had belonged to each other."

After being voted "most brilliant" of his class at Yale, he parted ways with Hadden to embark for a year on historical studies at Oxford University. During this time he worked as a cub reporter for the Chicago Daily News. In December 1921, Luce rejoined Hadden to work at The Baltimore News.