John Ames Mitchell

Editor, Life Magazine

Centurion, 1882–1918

Proposed by
Horace W. Robbins, John Durand, and Henry Holt

born January 17, 1845
New York (Manhattan), New York

died June 29, 1918
Ridgefield, Connecticut

elected February 4, 1882
Age thirty-seven

buried Fairlawn Cemetery,
Ridgefield, Connecticut

proposer of

seconder of

Member portrait of John Ames Mitchell — Member Photograph Albums CollectionAlbum 8, Leaf 9

To inquire about image use and/or publication, contact the Archivist.

Century Memorial

It is for his own genial personality, more even than for his editorship of Life, that the Century will remember John Ames Mitchell. Yet his achievement in humorous journalism was remarkable. In offering to the general reader a kind of weekly publication which had previously made its way only in college journalism, he was convinced from the start that sprightly text supported by the very best drawing would establish its own clientage. His weekly brochure of wit and satire, with a little of good humored cynicism and a great deal of clever comment, provided something which the public instantly discovered that it wanted. If on rare occasions he was bitter in the caricature of men and events which he brought into the pages of Life, it was because of the strength and force of his beliefs; never because of a lapse in the kindliness of his temper.

Alexander Dana Noyes
1919 Century Association Yearbook

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