Whyte, William Hollingsworth

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William Hollingsworth Whyte, 1917–99, b. West Chester, Pa. He graduated from Princeton (1939), then served in the Marine Corps (1941–45). Writing for Fortune magazine (1946–58), he developed a thesis about the postwar surrender of individualism to the conformity of the corporation, out of which came his best-selling book The Organization Man (1956). His other books include The Last Landscape (1968), The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (1980), and City: Rediscovering the Center (1988).

See A. LaFarge, ed., The Essential William H. Whyte (2000).