Rick, you can make a case for that in the fifties, but not the forties. There's no question that Heinlein was number one in that decade.
You may be 100% on that, MP.  Fortunately (unfortunately?), even I'm not quite old enough to know that first-hand.  And, as I readily admit, I'm not and never have been really heavy into sf literature.  I'd put myself in the 'average literate American' category, with just a whiff of sf knowledge.