Eric Johnston
President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a motion picture association executive and U.S. government administrator · United States · On the map · Business Professionals · Lived 1896 to 1963 · aged 66
Eric Allen Johnston was a business owner, president of the United States Chamber of Commerce, a Republican Party activist, president of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), and a U.S. government special projects administrator and envoy for both Democratic and Republican administrations.
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Johnston studied at the University of Washington (here, aerial view, circa 1922)
To pay for college, Johnston worked in many jobs, including stevedore (here, longshoremen on a New York dock load barrels of corn syrup onto a barge on the Hudson River, photographed by Lewis Hine circa 1912)
Johnston was president of the United States Chamber of Commerce (here, circa 2008) from 1942 through 1945
Jack Valenti succeeded Johnston as MPAA president
Johnston supported Wendell Willkie (here, 3 March 1940) during the 1940 Republican Party presidential primaries.About this person
As president of the MPAA, he abbreviated the organization's name, convened the closed-door meeting of motion picture company executives at New York City's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel that led to Waldorf Statement in 1947 and the Hollywood blacklist, and discreetly liberalized the Motion Picture Production Code. He served as president of the MPAA until his death in 1963.
