Harold Hammond was born Harry Chaimowitz on June 5, 1909 in New York City. His father, Abraham Chaimowitz, was born in 1883 in Russia of Jewish ancestry and came to America in 1902. His mother, Jennie Goldstein, was born in 1889 in NYC of Russian Jewish ancestry. His parents met in NYC, where they were married on May 1, 1907. They had three children, Harold (b.1909), Henry (b.1914), and Beatrice (b.1917). The family lived at 1085 Simpsin Street in the Bronx. The father owned and operated a stationery store, where the mother also worked as a saleswoman.
The children all attended NYC public schools.
In June of 1927 Harry Chaimowitz graduated from a Bronx high school.
In September of 1927 he began to attend a college in NYC, where he studied engineering and business.
In 1928 he began to use the name Harry Hammond instead of Harry Chaimowitz. Later on his younger brother, Henry Chaimowitz, followed his example and changed his name to Henry Manson.
In February of 1929 the publishing empire of Hugo Gernsback was forced into bankruptcy, after which his business was reorganized in coordination with a publishing syndicate that included Bernarr Macfadden, Moe L. Annenberg, and Eastern Distributing, a company owned by Warren Angel and Paul Sampliner, which employed Irving S. Manheimer and Louis Silberkleit. The reorganized business had all advertising handled by Henry Dwight Cushing of Man Story Magazines.
In 1930 Harold Hammond lived at home with his parents in an apartment building at 643 Lexington Avenue, which was on East 55th Street. This was an affluent neighborhood, so the family stationery store had apparently prospered. Besides his parents, he also lived with his younger brother and sister, as well as his widowed maternal grandmother, Sarah Goldstein, who was born in 1868 in Russia and came to America in 1887.
In June of 1931 Harold Hammond graduated from a NYC college with a degree in business and engineering.
In 1933 Louis Silberkleit, and his former assistant circulation manager, Martin Goodman, left Eastern Distributing to form a partnership and found Newsstand Publications to produce pulp magazines. They hired Harold Hammond as Advertising Manager.
After one year the partnership was dissolved, and had each begun their own pulp magazine publishing company. Goodman formed Red Circle Publications, while Silberkleit formed Winford Publications, and kept Harold Hammond as Advertising Manager.
On February 16, 1936 Harold Hammond, under his birth name Harold Chaimowitz, married Miriam Toplitz in Brooklyn. She was born November 7, 1912 in NYC of Russian Jewish ancestry.
In 1939 Louis Silberkleit joined with Maurice Coyne and John Goldwater to form MLJ Publications. The company name was derived from the combined initials of their first names, Maurice, Louis, John. MLJ produced comic books, such as Pep, Zip, and Archie Comics.
On March 30, 1940 Samuel Dinerman appeared before Notary Public, Maurice Coyne, to swear that he owned Blue Ribbon Comics along with MLJ Magazines of 160 West Broadway. In fact Samuel Dinerman was a corporate attorney. A NYC Business Directory listed him as a lawyer at 60 Hudson Street and the telephone number was BA7-7698. That same directory listed Louis Silberkleit as a publisher at the same address with the same telephone number. For the next twenty years the business address and telephone number of both men remained the same, which indicates the lawyer was the publisher's corporate counselor. Samuel Dinerman was born in NYC on May 6, 1901 and in 1925 was married and became a member of the NY Bar Association.
According to a letter published in Writer's Digest in November of 1940, Louis Silberkleit took over control of Columbia Publications at 241 Church Street, and was listed as President, John Goldwater was Vice President, Maurice Coyne was Secretary and Treasurer, while Harold Hammond was identified as the Advertising Manager.
In 1940 the parents of Harold Hammond, Mr. & Mrs. Chaimowitz, lived at 246 East 50th Street in Manhattan with their youngest daughter, Beatrice Chaimowitz.
In 1941 Louis Silberkleit and Harold Hammond formed Atlas Fiction Group to produce pulp magazines such as All-American Sports.
In 1941 Silberkleit and Hammond founded Close-Up Incorporated to produce Close-Up Magazine, and Slick Magazine, both of which were tabloid magazines of pin-ups and gag cartoons. After six issues the title of Slick Magazine was changed to Sleek Magazine.
On July 2, 1942 The Washington Post reported that Close-Up Incorporated of NYC had discontinued publication of Sleek Magazine, because the Postmaster General considered the pin-up photos indecent, so it was banned from distribution by mail.
In 1942 the Federal Trade Commission decided to prevent Columbia Publications from selling reprinted stories as "all new stories." Legal documents from that case identified the company's owners as "Louis Silberkleit and Harold Hammond."
In 1944 Mr & Mrs. Harold Hammond had a son, Peter Robert Hammond. One year later on September 22, 1945 their daughter Barbara Hammond was born at the Woman's Hospital on 110th Street and Amsterdam Avenue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The Hammond family left NYC and moved to the exclusive community of Great Neck on Long Island, NY, where they lived at 320 East Shore Drive.
On September 25, 1945 Louis Silberkleit swore before Notary Public, Maurice Coyne, that the Business Manager of Black Hood Comics was Harold Hammond.
On September 30, 1946 Louis Silberkleit swore before Notary Public, Maurice Coyne, that Suzie Comics was published by Close-Up Incorporated of 241 Church Street in NYC, and that the sole owner was Harold Hammond. Silberkleit identified himself as the publisher, and John L. Goldwater as Editor, Harry Shorten Managing Editor, and Maurice Coyne was Business Manager.
On March 25, 1949 while on vacation in Miami Beach at the Belmar Hotel, the rooms of Mr & Mrs. Harold Hammond were ransacked by a daring daytime burglar, who entered with a pass key and stole a mink coat and $12,750 in jewelry.
In 1951 Louis Silberkleit and Harold Hammond founded Hanro Corporation, which produced paperbacks under the names Phantom Books and Harlequin Books, as well as the sci-fi digest, Orbit. This company later produced men's adventure magazines such as Man's Conquest, Men In Combat, Impact and Man's Illustrated.
On May 3, 1956 Harold Hammond and his wife, Miriam T. Hammond, traveled to Paris France by Pan American Airways for a two-week summer vacation.
Along with their posh home in Great Neck, the Hammonds also had a second home in Florida, where they spent the winter months, at 18 Hickory Drive in Lake Florida.
In 1956 Louis Silberkleit and Harold Hammond founded The Sterling Group, which published TV Stage, TV & Movie Screen, Movie Mirror, True Photo, Photography For Men, and Complete Confessions. The company name, Sterling, is derived from the name Silberkleit, which is German for "a bit of silver."
In 1958 Harold Hammond formed the Hammond Associates, an advertising agency at 120 East 56th Street in NYC.
The Macfadden-Bartell Corporation, headed by Irving S. Manheimer, was in cahoots with several smaller publishing companies to produce Hollywood fan magazines, Detective Magazines, and Men's Adventure Magazines, which catered to sensational subjects that sold well, but pushed legal limits of decency and obscenity, with scandalous, gruesome, vulgar, and obscene subject matter. To avoid legal responsibility the publishers fabricated an obscure network of company names and locations. One common thread was that all inquiries for advertising rates were directed to Harold Hammond Associates. Most likely the power behind this publishing syndicate headed by Irving S. Manheimer was ANC.
In 1959 the Sterling Group produced Movie Mirror. Ideal Publishing Corporation produced Movie Stars, TV Closeups and Movie Life. These Hollywood and TV fan magazines were all distributed by PDC, which was owned by Irving S. Manheimer.
In 1960 Harold Hammond formed QMG Magazine Corporation to produce men's adventure magazines. The name QMG stood for Quality Men's Group.
In July 1962 "Hammond Publications" released a new periodical, Sport World Magazine. The editors were Art Crockett and Barnet "Bud" R. Ampolsk. The second issue listed the company name as "Reese Publishing." In 1963 Silberkleit and Hammond formed "EmTee Publications" to produce Sport World. The company name, EmTee, is derived from the initials "M. T." in the maiden name of Harold Hammond's wife, Miriam Toplitz.
In 1964 Harold Hammond formed Reese Publications to produce Real Combat Stories, while EmTee Publications produced New Man, Men Today and Man's Book, and Hanro Corporation produced Hollywood Teen Album.
In 1972 Harold Hammond formed Hammond Media Corporation at 964 Third Avenue. The Vice President was his thirty-year-old son, Peter Robert Hammond.
Harold Hammond died of cancer in NYC at the age of sixty-four on January 4, 1974. The New York Times printed several heartfelt notices, including one from the President of Archie Enterprises, John L. Goldwater, "The untimely passing of our esteemed and close associate has deeply grieved everyone in our organization."
© David Saunders 2014 |
