Alicia Patterson Guggenheim was born in 1906 as Alicia Patterson to a generational newspaper family. Her father, Joseph Medill Patterson, was the founder of the New York Daily News and her great grandfather, Joseph Medill, was the owner of the Chicago Tribune.
Alicia began her journey with newspapers in the promotions
department of her father’s Daily News
in 1927 and was eventually assigned as a reporter. She spent some time working
for her father’s paper until she was fired due to the paper being sued for
libel on one of her pieces. After she was fired, she moved back to Chicago
where she spent much of her earlier years. This is where she met, then married
Harry Frank Guggenheim in 1939, which was her third marriage.
After their marriage, Harry and Alicia moved to their
thirty-room mansion in Sands Point. In 1940, she created her won newspaper,
Newsday, and would commute to her office in Hempstead from Sands Point. Between
the two of them, Harry and Alicia held all shares to the newspaper with Harry
controlling 51% and Alicia controlling 49%. Besides being the creator and
owner, she was also the editor of the paper.
Alicia wanted to create Newsday to give balanced news
coverage through investigative journalism while maintaining a lively style. Her
idea of balanced news coverage was to ensure that there was even coverage of
both democratic and republican news, as well as international coverage. She
also investigated local stories of crime, as well as entertainment to make it a
newspaper for all readers to enjoy.
Quickly, she made Newsday a well-respected paper and it even
won the Pulitzer Prize in 1954. Also in 1954, Newsday became the country’s
largest suburban magazine and the Guggenheims used it to help create an
identity for Long Island. By 1957, Newsday’s daily circulation count was
130,000.
On July 2, 1963, Alicia Patterson Guggenheim passed away at
the age of 56 from complications following a stomach surgery. By the time of
her death, the daily circulation count has reached 370,000 and Newsday had
obtained four Polk Awards. Following her death, Harry became the publisher and
editor of Newsday and the newspaper did its best to maintain the integrity and
purpose that Alicia created.
Greer, K., & Diamond,
S. (1985). Alicia Patterson Guggenheim. In In Between Ocean and Empire: An
Illustrated History of Long Island (pp. 212-213). Northridge, CA: Windsor
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