Alden R. Hatch

Who was Alden R. Hatch?

Alden R. Hatch was an American writer. He was the son of May D. Hatch and her husband Frederic H. Hatch, owner of a successful Wall Street stock brokerage firm he founded in 1888. Alden's brother, Eric S. Hatch, was a writer on the staff of The New Yorker and a novelist and screenwriter best known for his book 1101 Park Avenue that became a hit film under the title My Man Godfrey.

Born in New York City, Alden Hatch was the author of more than 40 books. A number of his works chronicled the lives of a variety of high-profile individuals such as Pope Pius XII, Pope John XXIII, Brother André, Charles de Gaulle, Prince Bernhard, Glenn Curtiss, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mamie Eisenhower, George S. Patton, Wendell Willkie, Woodrow Wilson and Edith Bolling Wilson, Clare Boothe Luce, Buckminster Fuller and what Hatch described as a "novelized biography" of Franklin Roosevelt. A fan of Thoroughbred horse racing, in 1938 he collaborated with Foxhall Keene on a biography of the late James R. Keene, the renowned horseman and owner of Castleton Farm.

Hatch wrote several books on his friend, Dwight Eisenhower, and his official biography was used by the General during his 1952 presidential campaign.