R. D. Blumenfeld

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Ralph David Blumenfeld (pen-name R.D.B., 7 April 1864 – 17 July 1948) was a United States-born journalist, writer and newspaper editor who is chiefly notable for having been in charge of the British Daily Express from 1902 to 1932.

Blumenfeld was born in Watertown, Wisconsin, the son of a German revolutionary who had emigrated to the USA after 1848 and then founded a German language newspaper. He began his journalistic career working with his father before moving to the Chicago Herald in 1884. The next year saw him work for the United Press and he visited the United Kingdom to report on the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria and as a general correspondent.

In 1894 Blumenfeld moved to Britain permanently, and joined the Daily Mail as news editor. In 1902 he moved to the Daily Express, becoming the Managing Editor in 1909, and was in charge as the paper established itself under the ownership of Lord Beaverbrook after 1916. While the work was hard and involved long hours, "R.D.B." kept a diary which was published in 1930 and provided an entertaining look at life behind the scenes in Fleet Street.

Blumenfeld had handed over immediate management of the paper to his protegé Beverley Baxter in 1929 and in 1932 became Chairman of the Board of Directors. He was also active in politics and set up the Anti-Socialist Union and was President of the Institute of Journalists. He was said to have been one of the few people who induced Calvin Coolidge to talk, while leading a visit of journalists to the White House in 1927.

In 1935, after broadcasting a series of talks on BBC Radio called "Anywhere for a News Story", Blumenfeld retired to a farmhouse in Great Dunmow, Essex. In his last years he was incapacitated by a stroke.