M. H. de Young was associated with the San Francisco Chronicle from the time he was fifteen until his death in 1925. In those sixty years he built it into one of the major newspapers in California. Along with the Los Angeles Times, the Chronicle under de Young was known as one of the leading conservative voices in the state. After guiding the paper from its birth through its growth into a stable institution, he devoted much of his time to the interests of the Republican party and to public affairs. His direction of the paper coincided with the development of San Francisco from a frontier town into a distinctive, cosmopolitan community, and he played a significant role in that transformation; as a civic leader and art collector, he promoted the economic and cultural development of the city. The Chronicle, which is now the highest-circulation paper in northern California...