1863-1951
Editor, Publisher, Politician, Collector

Empire. Born to a family fortune made in mining, William Randolph Hearst built one of the largest communications empires in U.S. history. His assets, estimated at between $200 million and $400 million, included sixteen daily newspapers with a combined circulation of more than five million, the International News Service, King Features, the American Weekly Sunday supplement, Cosmopolitan, Harper's Bazaar, and Good Housekeeping. He also amassed one of the finest private art and antique collections in the world.

A Rich Kid's Diversion Turns to Serious Business.

Young Hearst was thrown out of Harvard University in his junior year for a series of practical jokes. He distributed chamber pots to faculty members with their names inserted on the bottoms and tethered a jackass in the home of one professor, with a note that read, "Now there are two of you." He then went...