Volume 35, Number 7 · April 28, 1988
Breaking Up
By Nicholas Lemann
House of Dreams: The Bingham Family of Louisville
by Marie Brenner
Random House, 452 pp., $19.95
The Binghams of Louisville: The Dark History Behind One of America's Great Fortunes
by David Leon Chandler, with Mary Voelz Chandler
Crown, 292 pp., $17.95
The Louisville Courier-Journal was for many years perhaps the most famous provincial newspaper in the United States, partly because it was among the few liberal ones and partly because of its many journalistic awards. Although the Courier-Journal and its sister paper, the Louisville Times, had several legendary editors, like Henry Watterson and Norman Isaacs, there was no doubt that the overriding reason why the papers were special was that they were owned and run by the Bingham family. The local newspaper is one of the few American institutions remaining in which greatness seems to be associated with Victorian social norms; it can't be an accident that the three best ones, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, are all still essentially family businesses.
Review, 4132 words
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