The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family behind the New York Times

With full cooperation from the families and unconditional access to the Times archives, Susan E. Tifft and Alex S. Jones have written the first insiders biography of the most powerful media clan in America.

When Adolph Ochs, the son of poor Jewish immigrants, bought the bankrupt New York Times in 1896, he transformed it into America’s most respected and powerful newspaper. His family’s values and prejudices set the agenda for the paper and came to set the agenda for the nation. The Trust is a dramatic saga set against a backdrop of world events, succession battles, and the burden and privilege of wealth and power. Spanning four generations, The Trust tells the story of Ochs, a visionary plagued by depression and insecurity; his daughter Iphigene, who fiercely guarded the family mystique; her husband, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, the paper’s most controversial publisher; their son Punch, whose amiable nature masked a steely toughness; and Arthur Jr., the brash successor, who is leading the Times into the future. Despite the author’s success, The Trust was written independent of family control.