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Lt. Oliver Jensen
Lieutenant Oliver O. Jensen (April 16, 1914 - June 30, 2005) was a U.S. Naval Reserve officer, co-founder and later editor of American Heritage magazine, and author of many historical books and art...view moreLieutenant Oliver O. Jensen (April 16, 1914 - June 30, 2005) was a U.S. Naval Reserve officer, co-founder and later editor of American Heritage magazine, and author of many historical books and articles.
Born in Ithaca, New York, the son of Dorothea and Gerald E. Jensen, who taught English at Connecticut College, he earned a bachelor’s degree at Yale University in 1936 and began a career in advertising and radio. By 1940 he was on the staff of Life magazine as a writer.
During World War II, he served in the U.S. Naval Reserve on a destroyer in the Atlantic and an aircraft carrier in the Pacific. He left the Navy as a lieutenant and resumed his work at Life.
In 1954, along with Joseph J. Thorndike Jr. and James Parton, he launched American Heritage with historian Bruce Catton as editor. Jensen’s article “The Old Fall River Line,” about the era of side-wheel steamboat travel on Long Island Sound, led off the first issue. Within five years, the bimonthly magazine had grown from 10,000 subscribers to more than 300,000. Jensen was the magazine’s managing editor from 1956-1959 and editor from 1959-1976.
He also served as editorial director of Horizon magazine during the 1960s and was editorial director of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1969). From 1981-1983, he was chief of the division of prints and photographs at the Library of Congress.
Other books that Jensen wrote, co-wrote or edited include “The Revolt of American Women” (1952), “American Album” (1968) and “High Honor: Recollections by Men and Women of World War II Aviation” (1989).
He died 30 June 2005 aged 91.view less