Current Biography Yearbook

Charles Moritz was an American reference editor best known for his long tenure as editor of Current Biography, the H.W. Wilson Company's monthly publication profiling notable contemporary figures across politics, business, science, the arts, and sports. Founded in 1940, Current Biography became one of the standard biographical reference works in American public, academic, and school libraries, and the annual hardcover Current Biography Yearbook compiled each year's profiles into a single reference volume. Moritz served as editor of Current Biography for roughly four decades beginning in the mid-twentieth century, shaping the publication's house style of factually rigorous, neutrally-toned profiles drawn from primary sources and supplemented by direct correspondence with subjects whenever possible. Under his editorial direction the yearbook expanded its international coverage and broadened its subject criteria beyond the originally narrow focus on politicians and authors to include figures from popular culture, science, and the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. For generations of American students, the Current Biography Yearbook was a first stop for biographical research assignments, and the editorial standards Moritz maintained during his tenure helped establish reference biography as a recognizable genre distinct from journalism, criticism, and full-length book biography. The publication continued under Wilson and later EBSCO into the present century. His editorial work, while less visible than authored books, shaped how millions of readers encountered the major public figures of the mid-to-late twentieth century, and the volumes he produced remain a primary research source for historians working on that period.