John Bartlow Martin: A Voice for the Underdog [Hardcover]

During the 1940s and 1950s, one name, John Bartlow Martin, dominated the pages of the big slicks, theSaturday Evening Post,LIFE,Harper's,Look, andCollier's. A former reporter for the Indianapolis Times, Martin was one of a handful of freelance writers able to survive solely on this writing. Over a career that spanned nearly fifty years, his peers lauded him as the best living reporter, the ablest crime reporter in America, and one of America's premier seekers of fact. His deep and abiding concern for the working class, perhaps a result of his upbringing, set him apart from other reporters. Martin was a key speechwriter and adviser to the presidential campaigns of many prominent Democrats from 1950 into the 1970s, including those of Adlai Stevenson, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Robert F. Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, and George McGovern. He served as U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic during the Kennedy administration and earned a small measure of fame when FCC Chairman Newton Minow introduced his description of television as a vast wasteland into the nation's vocabulary.

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Silver Medal, Biography category, 2016 Independent Publisher Book AwardsWinner, 2015 Society of Midland Authors awardsHonorable Mention, 2016 INDIEFAB Awards, Biography

Ray E. Boomhower is author ofThe People's Choice: Congressman Jim Jontz of IndianaandRobert F. Kennedy and the 1968 Indiana Primary(IUP, 2008). He is Senior Editor ofTraces of Indiana and Midwestern History, the quarterly magazine of the Indiana Historical Society.

This book offers important insights for students of journalism, the media, presidential campaigns, and foreign affairs. On the whole, Boomhower keeps Martin's stl£Á