Bradford McElderry Jacobs ’42

Brad died Apr. 5, 1997, of complications from lung surgery at John Hopkins Hospital. He retired in 1979 after a distinguished 44-year career in journalism with the Baltimore Evening Sun.

Brad came to Princeton from Gilman, majored in English, and was a member of Cap and Gown. After four years as an Army Intelligence officer in the European theater during WWII, he returned to Baltimore to join the Sun. He rose rapidly through the ranks, covering 15 presidential conventions, serving as London bureau chief, and becoming the youngest political correspondent in the paper's history. In 1968 he became editorial page editor. In 1978 he was credited with helping catapult Harry R. Hughes from obscurity to the Maryland governorship. The lasting impact of Hughes's election was that it "smashed, apparently forever, the antique Democratic machine buyer of votes and coddler of bosses, briber of the frail and patron of the strong which had run all weather in Maryland since the civil war," Brad wrote in the Evening Sun's last edition, in September 1995. Brad "had an encyclopedic knowledge of Maryland politics, and a very lively and sparkling writing style that made politics come alive." After retirement he continued to write. Thimbleriggers: The Law vs. Governor Marvin Mandel was published in 1984, and he was coeditor of H.L. Mencken's 35 Years of Newspaper Work, published in 1994.

To his wife, Molly, to his daughters Brucie, Sally, and Anne, and to his two grandsons, the class extends its warmest sympathies.

The Class of 1942