Mitchell, Joseph

▪ 1997

      U.S. writer and journalist (b. July 27, 1908, Fairmont, N.C.—d. May 24, 1996, New York, N.Y.), chronicled the lives of New York City's Fulton Fish Market vendors, Mohawk Indian construction workers, and eccentric denizens of Lower Manhattan saloons. His vignettes, which appeared mostly in The New Yorker magazine from the late 1930s through the early '60s, were viewed as stylistic precursors of the subjective "new journalism" later identified with Tom Wolfe and Norman Mailer. After attending the University of North Carolina, Mitchell took up residence in New York City, where he remained for the rest of his life. Before joining The New Yorker staff in 1938, he wrote (1929-38) for the New York Herald Tribune, the Morning World, and the World-Telegram. Mitchell was perhaps best remembered for the depictions of the patrons of McSorley's Saloon, a tavern located off Manhattan's Cooper Square. There such characters as Joseph Ferdinand Gould, who claimed to be writing a multimillion-word "Oral History of Our Times," and Commodore Dutch, who threw an annual charity benefit for himself, spent their days. A collection of sketches of McSorley's patrons was published under the title McSorley's Wonderful Saloon (1943). In 1992 four of Mitchell's books were published in an omnibus edition under the title Up in the Old Hotel.

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