Portrait of Alfred A. Knopf Sr.

Birthday profile

Alfred A. Knopf Sr.

Alfred A. Knopf Sr., American publisher, founded Alfred A. Knopf Inc. (died 1984)

Born
September 12, 1892
Died
August 11, 1984
Zodiac sign
Virgo
Birth year
1892

About Alfred A. Knopf Sr.

Alfred Abraham Knopf Sr. (September 12, 1892 – August 11, 1984) was an American publisher of the 20th century, and co-founder of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. His contemporaries included the likes of Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer, and (of the previous generation) Frank Nelson Doubleday, J. Henry Harper and Henry Holt. Knopf paid special attention to the quality of printing, binding and design in his books, and earned a reputation as a purist in both content and presentation. == Biography == Knopf was born into a Jewish family in New York City. His father, Samuel Knopf, was an advertising executive and financial consultant, and his mother was Ida Japhe, a school teacher. Samuel Knopf was originally from Warsaw, Poland, but came to New York with his parents, where he worked his way up the directorship at a small mercantile bank. Alfred's mother, Ida, was from a Latvian Jewish family who settled in New York. For a time Knopf's parents lived in the Midwest and in Virginia. Ida committed suicide when Alfred was five years old and his sister Sophia was almost two.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Career and life highlights

Alfred A. Knopf Sr. timeline

  1. From 1924 to 1934, he published the famous literary magazine founded by Mencken and Nathan, The American Mercury.
  2. Knopf Jr. left the company in 1959 to found Atheneum Publishers, Alfred and Blanche became concerned about the eventual fate of their publishing house, which had always been a family business.

The world when Alfred A. Knopf Sr. was born

Alfred A. Knopf Sr. was born in 1892. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentFirst heavyweight boxing title under Queensberry rules
  • Top headlineEllis Island immigration station opens
  • Technology milestoneDiesel engine patented by Rudolf Diesel
  • World population~1.52B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderBenjamin Harrison
  • U.S. population65.0M

1892 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Alfred A. Knopf Sr.'s birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure18922026
Population65.0M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.