Turner Catledge accepted a position as reporter with the New York Times in 1929, when it was still considered inferior to Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. During his more than forty years with the Times, the paper became one of the most prominent in the world. The Mississippi-born Catledge rose to an unprecedented power with the Times in 1964, when all new activities were centralized under him as executive editor. From 1960 to 1961 he served as president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, a group that included the top editors of newspapers nationwide. He helped to build the Times into the greatest American newspaper of its time.

Catledge was born on 17 March 1901 near New Prospect, Mississippi, the second child of Lee Johnston and Willie Anna (Turner) Catledge. When Turner was three, his family moved to Philadelphia, Mississippi, where two of his mother's brothers were opening a hardware store. Other brothers...