Carr Van Anda, a master in the gathering and presentation of news, was the chief architect who carried out Adolph Ochs's avowed purpose to gather and publish "All the News That's Fit to Print." In the twenty-one years that he served actively as the managing editor of the New York Times, Van Anda applied his keen intelligence and quiet, energetic industriousness to the task of publishing a daily newspaper of the highest quality, with the most complete and current information about major events.

Born 2 December 1864 in Georgetown, Ohio, Carr Vattel Van Anda was the only child of Frederick C. Van Anda, a lawyer, and Mariah E. Davis Van Anda. Raised in Wapakoneta, the seat of Auglaize County in the western part of Ohio, about 100 miles north of Cincinnati, Van Anda demonstrated as a boy an almost insatiable curiosity about math and science as well as a tinkerer's delight...