Harry Chandler

Harry Chandler (May 17, 1864 – September 23, 1944) was an American newspaper publisher and investor who became owner of the largest real estate empire in the U.S.

Biography

Early life

Harry Chandler was born in Landaff, New Hampshire to Moses K. and Emma J. (Little) Chandler. He attended Dartmouth College, and on a dare, he jumped into a vat of starch that had frozen over during winter, which led to severe pneumonia. He withdrew from Dartmouth and moved to Los Angeles for his health.

Career

In Los Angeles, while working in the fruit fields, he started a small delivery company that soon became responsible for also delivering many of the city's morning newspapers, which put him in contact with The Los Angeles Times publisher Harrison Gray Otis. Otis liked this entrepreneurial young man and hired him as the Times’ general manager. Harry married Otis’s daughter, Marian Otis, in 1894 (two years after the death of his first wife). The couple had six children together and also raised two daughters from Harry's first marriage. Upon Otis’s death in 1917, Harry took over the reins as publisher of the Times, transforming it into the leading newspaper in the West and at times the most successful. For three straight years in the 1920s, under his leadership, the Times led all other American newspapers in advertising space and amount of classified ads.