Fairchild Publications
A native and lifetime resident of Chicago, Art Weinberg was a prolific journalist. Weinberg’s articles and book reviews appeared in numerous publications, including the Saturday Review, Home Furnishings Daily and the Los Angeles Times. A social historian, educator, editor and journalist, his coverage of the International Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago during the 1970s helped to grow the consumer electronics industry.
Weinberg was active in the Industrial Workers of the World during the early 1930s and later served as the group’s president. Concerned with American labor, he was fascinated by Clarence Darrow and wrote Attorney for the Damned, a nonfiction collection of Mr. Darrow’s cases and speeches that remained on the New York Times best-seller list for 19 weeks in 1957. While attending Northwestern University during the late 1930s, Weinberg was associated with the Illinois Writers’ Project, a federal program that employed writers during the Depression. After receiving his diploma in Journalism in 1938 and his Ph.D in 1941, he served in the military from 1945 to1947, attaining the rank of Sergeant.
Upon leaving the military, Weinberg began his career with Fairchild Publications, where he worked for nearly 45 years. He wrote about the consumer electronics industry for Home Furnishings Daily (HFD) from1973 when the first winter International CES was hosted at the Conrad Hilton Hotel in Chicago until it moved to Las Vegas in 1978. The International CES summer show remained in Chicago from 1971 until 1994. He wrote about the debut of such products as the videocassette recorder (VCR) in 1970 and the laserdisc player in 1974. Weinberg was promoted to Midwest bureau chief for HFD in 1977 and remained in this position until 1981.
He also taught social history at DePaul University with his wife Lila, for 16 years. Together they co-authored a biography of Clarence Darrow, Clarence Darrow: A Sentimental Rebel in 1980 for which they were awarded the best biography award from the Society of Midland Authors. Weinberg served as president of the Society of Midland Authors for three years from 1967 to 1969, as well as director of the Headline Club, and a member of the Workmen’s Circle and the American Civil Liberties Union. In 1987 Weinberg received the Midland Authors’ annual award for a distinguished body of work, and in 1988 he was appointed Lloyd Lewis Fellow in the American history at Chicago’s Newberry Library. He passed away in 1989 and is survived by his wife Lila and three daughters.