Henry Doorly

  A brief biography of Henry Doorly must begin with his birth in Bridgewater, Barbados, British West Indies on November 9, 1879. Finding very little opportunity for employment in Barbados, Doorly came to the United States in 1898 and got a job surveying for the Union Pacific Railroad in Wyoming. This introduced Doorly to weather unlike anything in Barbados: snow and below zero temperatures. He also spent time as a draftsman for the Union Pacific and the Corps of Engineers in Omaha.
  At the Field Club, where he organized a cricket club, he met Margaret Hitchcock, daughter of the publisher of the Omaha World-Herald newspaper. Soon they were engaged, and Margaret’s father offered young Henry a job working for the paper. His career there took him from want ad salesman to business manager. In 1934 he became the newspaper’s publisher following the death of founder Gilbert Hitchcock.
  In 1942, less than a year after the country’s entry into World War II, Doorly became the driving force behind the fabulously successful scrap metal drives. Starting with a statewide contest that pitted county against county, the drives eventually spread across the country. Factories used the scrap metal to augment steel in the production of everything from bullets to tanks. As a result of the drives and the subsequent boost in the U.S military campaign, the World-Herald won a Pulitzer Prize for public service.
  In addition to his life with the World-Herald, Henry Doorly took a very active role in many civic endeavors. In 1943, when the polio epidemic underlined the need, he conceived the idea and was responsible for founding and supporting Children’s Memorial Hospital. He also worked for the conversion of the Nebraska Power Company, a private corporation, to the citizen-owned Omaha Public Power District.
  Other awards were achieved for the National Association of Soil Conservation Districts and a 1952 traffic safety campaign that cut auto fatalities by 30 percent.
  Today, the name Henry Doorly is most widely recognized in conjunction with Omaha’s world famed zoo. In Henry Doorly’s honor, his widow donated $750,000 to raise it from a small municipal zoo to its present world class status.

— Allen Hendricksen
DCHS Volunteer