Moses Annenberg


Moses "Moe" Louis Annenberg was an American newspaper publisher, who purchased The Philadelphia Inquirer, the third-oldest surviving daily newspaper in the United States in 1936. The Inquirer has the sixteenth-largest average weekday U.S. newspaper circulation, and has won eighteen Pulitzer Prizes.

Early life

Moses Annenberg was born in East Prussia in 1877 to a Lithuanian Jewish family. He left Germany and immigrated to Chicago in 1900.

Career

Annenberg began his career as a Chicago newspaper salesman at the Chicago Tribune, then, for the Hearst Corporation. He eventually built a fortune and the successful publishing company that became Triangle Publications, Inc., owning, among other publications, the Daily Racing Form.
During the Roosevelt administration, he was indicted for tax evasion on August 11, 1939, for income tax evasion for the years 1932, 1933, 1934, 1935 and 1936 totaling $3,258,809.97 in income taxes evaded. On April 4, 1940, Annenberg pleaded guilty to the 1936 income tax evasion count in the indictment that charged him with evading $1.2 million in taxes. Judge James Herbert Wilkerson, the same judge who previously sentenced Al Capone, sentenced Annenberg to three years in prison and a fine of $8.0 million "the largest single tax fraud penalty in history" at the time.

Personal life, death and legacy

Annenberg married Sadie Cecillia Freedman. They had one son, the publisher and philanthropist Walter Annenberg and seven daughters; Diana Annenberg, Esther "Aye" Annenberg Simon Levee, Janet Annenberg Hooker, Enid Annenberg Haupt, Lita Annenberg Hazen, Evelyn Annenberg Jaffe Hall, and Harriet Beatrice Annenberg Ames Aronson.
Annenberg was released from Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary prison June 3, 1942. Annenberg died in the Mayo Clinic July 20, 1942 after having surgery for a brain tumor. His Ranch A in eastern Wyoming is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.