PERIODICAL RAMBLINGS (2)

Fortune (Magazine)

 

    This is one in a series of posts about magazines and this one attempts to prove that even business journals can be interesting and attractive. (For more in this series on this blog see Periodical Ramblings.)

    Back in 2005 Fortune published a “75th Anniversary” issue which is full of useful information about its publishing history. The short essay that follows is about that issue and it was also written in 2005 in an attempt to encourage students to have a look at Fortune and to make them aware of the richness of the collection found in the stacks which they rarely visited. I doubt if it helped, but perhaps you will find the information to be of use.

[ This essay was published in 2005 in a newsletter produced by the staff at the C.B. “Bud” Johnston Library at the University of Western Ontario (now Western University). It is no longer found on the library website. What follows was retrieved from the Internet Archive. A few editorial notes are added in brackets and are bolded - like this one. I wrote the original and am alone responsible for it and the edited comments. The newsletter was called The Bottom Feeder. Jerry Mulcahy. June 2017]

Fortune Magazine - 75th Anniversary Issue

    

    Serious students of business - particularly those interested in business journalism - should have a look at the Fortune issue dated September 19, 2005 (Vol.152, No.6) where it is noted that:

"Ever since  our first issue in  1930, Fortune has been known for storytelling. There's the classic walking-the-halls-of-power company profile. The deeply reported tale that reveals a technological revolution. Insightful articles about leadership, big ideas and social change. Beautifully rendered photo essays. Great new examples of all these - and more - can be found in this special 75th Anniversary edition."

    Henry Luce, the founder, thought that "accurately, vividly and concretely to describe modern business is the greatest journalistic assignment in history". The magazine was luxuriously launched with 18th century Baskerville type on "wild wove antique" paper and hand sewn between 125-pound weight covers that often required many press runs. Fortune was large, beautiful and expensive and it was introduced just as the depression began.            

Fortune is often analyzed in American Studies programs and is the rare business periodical that is the subject of debate in American intellectual history. During its early years, the magazine exhibited great art, published great writers and took stands that seem odd for a 'business' magazine. A good description of the early Fortune is provided in the opening paragraph of a new book by Michael Augspurger about the magazine:

“To open a Fortune magazine from the 1930s of 1940s is to confront a series of incongruities. Here is a self-described "beautiful" magazine that devoted itself not to society life or fashion but to the grim world of business and industry in an era of economic disruption and tragedy; a magazine presumed to be a "booster" for business that printed scathing exposes not only of easy targets like the munitions industry, but of U.S. Steel and the housing industry and the producers of women's clothing; a champion of corporate capitalism that acknowledged the right of unions to strike, supported higher wages, and called for federal programs ranging from social security to the Securities Exchange Commision. Beyond these economic tensions, however, the magazine's intense interest in art and culture, whether in the form of rare books, or the art programs of the federal Works Progress Administration, seems inconsistent with its business focus. An essay on the American workingman might be illustrated not only by Margaret Bourke-White's industrial photographs but also by paintings by Reginald Marsh and Thomas Benton, and sculptures by Max Kalish. A piece on the bullfighting industry might be contributed by Ernest Hemingway and complemented by the art of Goya and Eduard Manet. Any one issue might contain an essay on major American orchestras, the revival of the craft of stained glass, or the state of American painting. Even the magazine's writers were poets and intellectuals, whether remembered like James Agee, Archibald Macleish, and Dwight Macdonald, or otherwise.”

    As an aside, it could be argued that our own Business Quarterly was influenced by Fortune, in that the covers often were aesthetically pleasing (see, for example, the Summer issue of 1988 which displays a Picasso painting. Business Quarterly  also began in the 30s and continues online as the Ivey Business Journal). [Business Quarterly was published by the Business School at the University of Western Ontario. Its successor is now produced by the same school which is now known as the Ivey Business School at the same university which is now called Western University].

    The anniversary issue of Fortune provides some of the photos and contains an interesting essay about a story that they did not publish - the one that became the book, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Those interested in the role of women in business should read "My 51 Years and Counting" by Carol Loomis which begins on p. 298. That essay should be supplemented by the following chapter that discusses, among other things, the use of "girl" researchers by the magazine: "Fortune: Vol. I, No. I",  in Elson's Time Inc. The Intimate History of a Publishing Enterprise, 1923-1941. For a thorough discussion of Fortune see: An Economy of Abundant Beauty: Fortune Magazine and Depression America by Michael Augspurger.

    Fortunately, we have a complete run of Fortune in our collection and you should have a look at the older volumes which are in the oversize area (as another aside, the folks at the Canadian office of another major American business publication- Business Week- donated a pristine set of volumes of that magazine, the covers which are displayed here, along with some details). As well, there are other related books such as Walker Evans at Fortune, 1945-1965 and a large number of works by and about Bourke-White, whose photographs are frequently found in Fortune. In 2005 an example of how Fortune is used in an American Studies program is provided at the University of Virginia, along with a display of some of the covers of the magazine.

[After this was written the old issues of Fortune were placed in storage and one can no longer browse through them. Gone also are the “pristine” bound copies of Business Week. Interestingly enough, Fortune is still being used in the UVA American Studies Program along with a display of covers. J.M. Aug. 2017]   

Post Script

   It is noted above that the book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee began as an article for Fortune, but was never published in the magazine.  Recently the manuscript intended for Fortune was discovered and has been published in book form as: Cotton Tenants: Three Families, edited by John Summers with photographs by Walker Evans. A portion of the book can be read in The Baffler (No. 19, March 2012) which is responsible for the publication of the book by Melville House.

Here is the background piece that explains why the story was never published:

“The Most Famous Story We Never Told”, Whitford, David, Yang, Jia Lynn, Fortune, Vol. 152, Issue 6, 2005.

“In 1936 this magazine sent a poet and a photographer to Hale County in Alabama to document the lives of sharecroppers. The result wasn't published in these pages, but became a celebrated book. Sixty-nine years later, we return.

Sixty-nine years ago, in the summer of 1936, FORTUNE sent writer Agee and photographer Evans south to document the lives of cotton sharecroppers. Their story was to be part of a series called "Life and Circumstances." Agee was a published poet, not long out of Harvard, who once described himself as "a great deal more a communist than not." Evans--the partner Agee insisted upon for this plum assignment--was on loan to FORTUNE from the Farm Security Administration. They left New York by car on a mid-June afternoon and were gone two months, long enough for Agee to conclude that the story he had found was too subversive for FORTUNE, and possibly bigger than any magazine could hold, and more important than his career. So when his editors demanded a second draft, and Agee refused, and the story finally was killed, that was okay. "Half unconsciously, and half consciously, Agee saw to it that it would not get into FORTUNE," Evans later said.

Houghton Mifflin published Let Us Now Praise Famous Men in 1941, with photographs by Evans.

Here are some excerpts from Cotton Tenants which may indicate why Agee’s work was not published in Fortune.

On pregnancy:

“How late in her pregnancy a woman works around the house and in the fields and how soon she gets back to work again depends on her health and how much grit she has. Since that is the code she believes in and lives up to the answer is, she works as late and soon as she can stand to, which is likely to mean later and sooner than she should.”

On Infant mortality:

“Of the seven children the Tingles have lost, one lived to be four, and pulled a kettle of scalding water over on him. (Such accidents, with milder results, are not infrequent in large families with distracted mothers.) One lived to be five and ate some bad bologna sausage one night and was dead before morning. The rest died within their first year. One died of colitis. From what people said of it another must have died of infantile paralysis. The rest, they don’t know what they died of, the doctor never told them. William Fields’s twin died winter before last, of pneumonia. Last winter William was very sick, too. He got choking spells and his face got as black as a shoe. The doctor has told them that unless his tonsils are removed he may not live through another winter. They don’t know whether or not to believe him; meantime there are other expenses already incurred that they can’t afford as it is. The Burroughses’ daughter Martha Ann was six months old when she died. The doctor found out what it was but there was nothing he could do about it. It was an abscess behind the eye.”

A typical Evan’s photo: