Jack Fuller Papers, 1951-2005

Gift of Jack Fuller.

The Jack Fuller Papers are open for research in the Special Collections Reading Room; 1 box at a time (Priority III).

The Jack Fuller Papers are the physical property of the Newberry Library. Copyright may belong to the authors or their legal heirs or assigns. For permission to publish or reproduce any materials from this collection, contact the Roger and Julie Baskes Department of Special Collections.

Jack Fuller Papers, The Newberry Library, Chicago.

Kelly Kress, 2007.

This inventory was created with the generous support of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this inventory do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Chicago Journalist and author.

Jack William Fuller was born in Chicago, Illinois, on October 12, 1946. The son of Ernest Fuller, a financial reporter for the Chicago Tribune, and Dorothy Fuller, he followed his father into journalism, beginning as a copyboy at the Chicago Tribune at age 16. He received his BS degree in Journalism from Northwestern University in 1968, and also attended Yale Law School, receiving his JD degree in 1973.

Fuller's law studies were interrupted when he was drafted into the United States Army during the Vietnam War. From 1969-1970 he served as a Vietnam correspondent for Pacific Stars and Stripes. During the summer of 1972, Fuller wrote for the Washington Post.

From 1973-1975 he worked as a general assignment reporter for the Chicago Tribune, but left the paper to join the U.S. Department of Justice as special assistant to Attorney General Edward Levi. Fuller rejoined the Tribune as Washington correspondent in 1977, and in 1978 returned to Chicago as an editorial writer. He served as Editorial Page Editor from 1981-1987, was appointed Executive Editor in 1987, and Vice President and Editor in 1989. From the late 1980s to the early 1990s, he devoted the bulk of his writing to jazz criticism for the Tribune. Fuller was named Publisher of the newspaper in 1994, and President of the Tribune Publishing Company in 1997. He was named to the board of directors in 2001.

Fuller simultaneously pursued a writing career, and published six novels: Convergence, 1982; Fragments, 1984; Mass, 1985; Our Fathers' Shadows, 1987; Legend's End, 1990; and The Best of Jackson Payne, 2000. Fuller also authored the nonfiction News Values: Ideas for an Information Age, published in 1996.

Fuller was married to Alyce Tuttle from 1972-2002 and the couple had two children, Timothy and Katherine. Fuller married Debra Moskovits in 2004.

In 1986, Fuller won a Pulitzer Prize for his editorial writing on constitutional issues. Though he retired from the Tribune Company in 2004, he continues to write editorials for the paper as well as lecture on various journalistic issues. In 2005 Fuller was named to the Board of Directors of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, a private, independent grantmaking institution based in Chicago. He also serves as a Trustee of the University of Chicago and the Field Museum.

The collection contains literary and journalistic works, correspondence, files, and personal documents of Chicago journalist and novelist Jack Fuller. Also included are newspaper articles written by Fuller's father, Ernest Fuller, a former financial reporter for the Chicago Tribune.

Multiple drafts of Fuller's seven published books as well as drafts of several unpublished works constitute the bulk of the collection. Also included are magazine articles, poetry, newspaper editorials and articles from the Chicago Tribune, Pacific Stars and Stripes, the Washington Post, and other newspapers, speeches and lectures, personal, job-related, and publisher correspondence, teaching materials, and documents related to Fuller's tenure at the Department of Justice. Photographs are of Fuller during childhood and at various stages in his career, of family, and those Fuller took while in the United States Army. Vietnam materials include color slides and black and white contact sheets.

Papers are organized in the following series:

Title Box Series 1: Works Boxes 1-38 Series 2: Correspondence Boxes 39-49 Series 3: Personal Boxes 50-53 Series 4: Career Boxes 54-55 Series 5: Working Files Boxes 56-59 Series 6: Photographs Box 60

• Names
  • Chicago Tribune (Firm). -- Employees
  • Fuller, Ernest
  • Fuller, Jack
  • Inter-American Press Association.
  • Just, Ward S
  • Levi, Edward H. (Edward Hirsch), 1911-2000
  • Lipsky, Seth
  • Locher, Dick, 1929-
  • MacNelly, Jeff
  • Medill School of Journalism. -- Faculty
  • O'Brien, Tim
  • Pacific Stars and Stripes.
  • Sonnenschein, Hugo
  • Squires, James D., 1943-
  • Terkel, Studs, 1912-
  • Turow, Scott
  • United States. Department of Justice. -- Officials and employees
  • United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation.
  • Wille, Lois
  • Yale Law School. -- Students
• Subject
  • Chicago
  • Journalism
  • Journalistic ethics -- United States
  • Literature
  • Manuscripts, American -- Illinois -- Chicago
  • Pulitzer Prizes
  • Vietnam War, 1961-1975
  • Vietnam War, 1961-1975 -- Fiction
• Geographic CoverageChicago (Ill.) -- Fiction