Elbert H. Baker
Elbert H. Baker, president and general manager of the Cleveland Plain Dealer Publishing Company, has had forty years of active newspaper life in Cleveland. He is one of the veterans of the profession and is also widely known as a citizen and business man.
He was born at Norwalk, Ohio, July 25, 1854, son of Henry and Clara (Hall) Baker. He began life with a public school education. In 1877 Mr. Baker became connected with the Cleveland Herald as bookkeeper and later as advertising manager. In 1882 he became advertising manager of the Cleveland Leader and was for ten years a member of its board of directors. He continued in active charge of the advertising department of the Leader until 1897. In 1898 he became associated with the Cleveland Plan Dealer as general manager, on the death of Liberty E. Holden. In 1913 Mr. Baker was elected president of the Plain Dealer Publishing Company.
Mr. Baker is a member of the board of directors of the Associated Press and of the American Newspaper Publishers Association, serving as president of the latter association in 1912-14. Mr. Baker has exemplified much of the stalwart public spirit which has characterized Cleveland citizenship and made it first among Ohio cities. He is chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Euclid Avenue Congregational Church, and a trustee of the Cleveland Young Men's Christian Association. He is a member of the Western Reserve Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution and the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce. He has membership in various clubs including the Union Club, Cleveland Athletic Club, Chagrin Valley Hunt Club.
Mr. Baker and his family reside at Gates Mill, Ohio. He was married June 1, 1876 to Miss Ida A. Smith of Cleveland. They have reason to be proud of their children. The eldest, Louise Hall, is now Mrs. Benjamin Hastings of Cleveland. Mrs. Hastings is a graduate of the Woman's College of Cleveland with the class of 1901. Frank Smith Baker, who graduated from Adelbert College of Cleveland in 1902, is now publisher of the Tribune at Tacoma, Washington. Elbert H., Jr., who was a student at Cornell University for three years, is the efficiency engineer of the St. Paul and Tacoma Lumber Company with residence and office at Tacoma, Washington. Alton Fletcher Baker, was graduated from Cornell University with the class of 1917 and is now serving at the front in France as a first lieutenant in the Automobile Convoy.
From Cleveland - Special Limited Edition, The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago & New York, 1918 v.1