Roderic C. Penfield
American publisher and writer / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Roderic Campbell Penfield (December 20, 1864 – April 2, 1921) was an American publisher, printer, editor, journalist, theatre critic, businessman, playwright, and lyricist. The author of several plays, including both books and lyrics for multiple musicals, two of his stage works were mounted on Broadway: Lady Teazle (1904) and The White Hen (1907). During his varied career in media, he worked as journalist and editor for the New-York Tribune, The Sun, and the New York Evening Mail; also working as a theatre critic for the latter paper. From 1912 to 1914 he was managing editor of Harper's Weekly. Also a businessman with media interests, he was for a time the co-owner of the Asbury Park Press with his brother, Norman W. Penfield. The brother also co-owned the pioneering news photography company, the Pictorial News Company of New York.
As a publisher, Penfield founded the Ultima Printing Utilities Co. in New York City. With that press he founded and served as both publisher and managing editor for the publications The Opera Magazine and The Greenwich Village Spectator. In the last years of his life he worked as a publisher in Japan for the Trans-Pacific Magazine and the World's Salesman; the latter of which he co-founded with his son shortly before his death.