Early Life and Career
Macdonald was born in New York City and was educated at Phillips Exeter Academy and Yale University. His first job was as a trainee executive for Macy's, but he soon moved to Time, where he was offered a position by fellow Yale alumnus Henry Luce. From 1929, Macdonald was an associate editor at Luce's business magazine Fortune. Like many writers on Fortune, his politics were radicalized by the Great Depression. He resigned from the magazine in 1936 over an editorial dispute, when the magazine's executives severely edited the last installment of his extended four-part attack on U.S. Steel.
In 1934, he married Nancy Gardiner Rodman (1910–1996), sister of Selden Rodman.
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