Periodical Ramblings (14)

 

Liberty Magazine - The Canadian One

   You will gather from the title that I have often written about periodicals and the rationale for doing so is stated in, "Periodical Ramblings (The Series)" which is found back in the summer of 2017. In the last few, I dealt with Look and Saturday Evening Post which, like Liberty, were popular magazines.

   I did not grow up in Canada, but if you did in the 1950s and '60s you probably read it or saw it displayed in the newsstands which used to exist. If you have any copies, you should hang onto them since they often fetch a fair price.

   

  Images of the magazine are easy to locate, but the periodical is not. One reason for that is that "liberty" is a word attached to many things, including many different kinds of periodicals There was a very popular Liberty in the United States about which much is found, but that is not true for the Canadian version, although I will add that my searches for it have not been exhaustive. 

  

   

  Apart from having a popular name, the title varied and you will find a Canadian New Liberty Magazine and one with a subtitle: Liberty: Canada's Young Family Magazine.

  It was published in Montreal and likely existed over the years from 1932 to 1964 and was edited during the latter years by Frank Rasky who was a popular Canadian author. A paperback edition of the one pictured above is available on Amazon for around $200. 

   I don't think any copies of Liberty exist in libraries in London. For anyone studying Canadian popular history, it would be an interesting resource. Gale has digitized for researchers the entire collection of the Liberty Magazine published in the United States, ("Liberty Magazine Historical Archive, 1924-1950.") 

Periodical Ramblings (12)

 The Saturday Evening Post

   At the beginning of this year I took a look at Look magazine and now in my dozenth post about periodicals, I will point you to The Saturday Evening Post. You will be surprised to learn that it still exists. Look ceased publication in the early 1970s. 

   The Saturday Evening Post was popular in the early 1960s, but it briefly stopped publication in 1969. It now has a colourful website and if you go to it you can subscribe and gain access and also receive by mail six print copies per year. As well, you can read over 200 years of archival issues. You should have a look. 

Norman Rockwell

   Even if you were born in this century you are likely to be familiar with The Saturday Evening Post because you are probably aware of Rockwell who produced over 300 covers for the magazine. There is a museum dedicated to Rockwell in Stockbridge, Mass. and it is worth visiting. We went to the Berkshires a few years ago and toured the museum and you should as well.  This will help you make the decision: Norman Rockwell Museum: The Home For American Illustration. 

   You may think his illustrations are "corny", but they can be costly.

In case you can't read the above, the painting sold for $46 million.

   I just finished reading the memoir of the Canadian writer and artist, Bruce McCall, and here is what he has to say about Rockwell. 

    "Norman Rockwell painted 322 Saturday Evening Post covers between 1916 and 1963. For much of that time he ruled as America's most famous artist, most beloved artist, and finest artist. He was sui generis, so confoundingly skilled that no artist ever tried to copy him. Rockwell was tall and skinny, his face arguably better known than that of many movie stars. He wasn't handsome, but he conveyed an inimitable decency. 

   I adored Rockwell's work. Any Rockwell cover stimulated a fond inch-by-inch examination. The "corny" charge, the jeering criticism of his work as trafficking exclusively in mythical America, the world Rockwell populated with cliched characters -- the lovable kid making harmless mischief, the benevolent small town cop, the gawky young GI, the bashful couple getting their wedding license from a grandfatherly clerk, ad infinitum --- all of it was provably true, upsetting to neither the Post readers, nor to me. These were incidental elements.

   His characters couldn't exist in the real world, but Rockwell documented the places, things and rituals of everyday American life with absolute stunning fidelity. He had no identifiable "style." His scenes looked found, natural. Tricks of composition were ingeniously buried. Rockwell studied every detail he placed in his pictures; should you find an error anywhere -- even a tiny prop of zero importance to the picture -- the entire illusion of reality he slaved to create would collapse. So he never erred." (How Did I Get Here, p.20)

   Rockwell did leave The Saturday Evening Post later in his career when he decided to portray more controversial images which he did, in Look. 

 "But it is less well known that he [Rockwell] decisively turned a corner just a few decades later, choosing to reject the airbrushed image of a nation implicitly populated with only happy, White, middle-class families.

Rockwell did this by abandoning his employer of nearly 50 years, the Saturday Evening Post, in large part because the magazine would let him portray Blacks only in subservient positions. After including two Black children in his 1961 illustration “Golden Rule,” Rockwell began receiving hate mail from segregationists, and the Post told him he should paint portraits only of statesmen or celebrities. Those instructions clashed with his conscience. Severing his ties with the magazine in 1963, Rockwell told his longtime editors that he had “come to the conviction that the work I now want to do no longer fits into the Post scheme.”

He joined Look magazine, and it was there that he painted some of the hardest-hitting, most widely seen visual attacks on racism in the nation’s history."

Sources:

   The quotation directly above is from: "Why Norman Rockwell Left Thanksgiving Americana Behind," Andrew Yarrow, Washington Post, Nov. 24, 2021. 

    Visit the Norman Rockwell Museum for details and for a link to his useful article: "Stockbridge, A Small Berkshires Town With a Big Artistic Reputation, " Alexandra Pecci, Washington Post, May 3, 2019. 

    For the rationale behind these "Ramblings" see: "Periodical Ramblings: The Series." 

Periodical Ramblings (9)

Arizona Highways

   I post occasionally about magazines and journals and the last one was about a genre of periodicals devoted to individuals (see Single Author Journals). That I would now choose to write about what would seem to be such a pedestrian publication may seem odd, but I am sure you are familiar with Arizona Highways. Although I grew up on the East Coast, I recall seeing a copy in the last century, probably in the office of my dentist or some other waiting room. It circulated widely and still does in this century. 

   There is no need for me to write much about it since so many others have. Plus, the publication is perhaps best known for the paintings, photographs and other illustrations contained within it and it will be more useful to simply direct you to them. The one above is of Monument Valley, which you probably remember well from the many Westerns filmed there. Who knew that it snowed there? When John Wayne first visited he supposedly said, "So this is where God put the West!"

(Although John Wayne is now persona non grata, I chose not to erase his quote).

   To see more photographs go to the Arizona Highways website. You will find a blog there as well and you can do some shopping. The Grand Canyon calendars look beautiful and you can get some postcards and pretend you have been there. 

 The Bonus Information:

   Although it is not obvious from the Arizona Highways website, you can access most of the beautiful issues through the Arizona Memory Project which contains  the Collections pictured above. Among them you will find digitized issues of Arizona Highways. I will give no further directions since you really should subscribe to the magazine.

   The Arizona Memory Project (AMP)

provides access to the wealth of primary sources in Arizona archives, museums, libraries, and other cultural institutions. Visitors to the site will find some of the best examples of government documents, photographs, maps, and multimedia that chronicle Arizona's past and present.

   I wish Ontario had such an archival project in place.

Sources:

  There have been anniversary issues in the publication which provide the information you need. I picked up the "Special 90th Anniversary Issue: A Look Back at Our First Nine Decades" while in Arizona.  It is the April 2015 issue and you can find the digitized version on the AMP. 

For the 95th anniversary see this ADOT article: "Arizona Highways Magazine Celebrates 95 Years With Special Issue" which looks at the landscape photography over the years. 

There is even an article in the Globe and Mail. See: "Arizona Magazine Published 60 Years," Edwin McDowell, Sept. 28, 1985. 

A more recent piece is found here: "Praising Arizona," by Kyle Paoletta, Columbia Journalism Review, June 20, 2020.

Today, Highways is the most beloved publication in Arizona. It has become an institution in a state too young to have many, as likely to be cited by historians and policymakers as any newspaper. For residents, the magazine is a talisman of their state’s particular allure. I’ve seen bundles of meticulously maintained back issues at a library sale in Flagstaff and vintage covers framed on the walls of an Airbnb in Phoenix. The reverence Arizonans have for the magazine is rooted in its upward trajectory over the course of the twentieth century, one that matches the rise in stature of the state itself from an obscure wasteland to a place of universally acknowledged natural splendor and cultural vibrancy. Robert Stieve, the current editor of Highways, calls it an “anomaly.” No other state-operated tourism magazine has reached the same heights of national influence, nor spawned as many imitators.

 

   

Periodical Ramblings (8)

Single Author Journals

     

 















This is my 8th post about periodicals. The others are each about a single journal or magazine. This one covers a class of periodical publications - those which are devoted to an individual. There is no formal classification for them and they are difficult to find unless you are looking for a specific person. That is, they are not listed in a subject classification and a good reference librarian would be unable to direct you to a place in the stacks where you could find all the periodicals dedicated to people. She might say, "Well I am sure there must be one for Shakespeare," and she would be correct since there are dozens dedicated to him.

     Those for authors such as Shakespeare are created by scholars and scholarly societies, but there are also many that cover the lowbrow who are written about by fans and enthusiasts and by the occasional academic interested in popular culture. There are thick single author journals that have been around for years and which publish regularly on a quarterly or annual schedule. There are also thinner magazines and newsletters that come out irregularly and which can disappear quickly.  All types of individuals can have devotees and all kinds of subjects and disciplines have a representative. There is even one (at least) about a librarian: About Larkin (the journal of the Philip Larkin society). Although he may have a journal, one learns from it that that wasn't enough to prevent the Larkin family home in Coventry from being demolished to make way for "junction 6 of the Coventry inner ring road". Such is progress.

 
















 One would think that such publications would be threatened by the Internet. Surely there must be a J. K. Rowling Society and a member within it who could create a web page or magazine. Although I am also sure there are many blogs dedicated to individual authors, most of them are likely to have been created by the unlettered and, like this one, remain unread.  A refereed journal published by an 18th century society or a university press will look better on an academic resume, so it is likely that scholarly single author journals will continue to be produced in print form, or electronically by a recognized periodical publisher.
   On the other hand, the greater threat is declining library budgets. Journal subscriptions present a real budgetary problem and the only scholar on campus who is interested in a single author is likely to have a difficult time in making the case for the retention of a periodical about one person.




















Sources: 
    For a very quick sample of single author journals produced by just one university press see Penn State University Press which is the source for all the images in this post. There are more, for example: The Arthur Miller Journal; The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies; The Journal of Nietzsche Studies and the Steinbeck Review.  I mentioned recently in a post about Mark Twain, a journal about him. Penn State has one as well - The Mark Twain Annual - which is on the list before the one for Shaw: The Journal of Bernard Shaw Studies.
   Such journals remain very difficult to locate (that is, all of them, not just one periodical about one author). There is one very good source, although it was published 40 years ago. Still, if you can locate it you will learn about the many titles that range widely from Balzac to Zane Grey. It is: Author Newsletters and Journals:An International Bibliography of Serial Publications Concerned With the Life and Works of Individual Authors,  Margaret C. Patterson, Gale Research Company 1979. For those of you who have read this far: there is an LC Classification for this book - Authors-Periodicals-Bibliography. I am sure that if you search by such a heading, it will still be the only book to be found.
   Before that book was available to me, I had discovered many such journals on the shelves in the periodical room and wondered about how one might find more. There was no way to do so and I pointed it out in this article. It is not bad and I will stick with the title: "Other People Magazines: A Somewhat Irreverent Look at Single Author Journals", Jerry Mulcahy, Change, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Apr., 1982), pp. 48-51.  (Although I have a pdf of the article and wrote it, the publisher has the rights. If you have access to JSTOR, you can read it.)

Post Script:
   Not all journals featuring the name of an individual on the masthead are about that individual. Penn State produces The Chaucer Review, which is also about medieval studies and literary criticism and the University of Toronto Press publishes The Tocqueville Review which focuses on  "the comparative study of social change, primarily in Europe and North America, but also covering major developments in other parts of the world, in the spirit of Alexis de Tocqueville’s pioneer investigations."
   Nor all such journals located where you would expect them to be. The James Joyce Quarterly is published at the University of Tulsa. As an aside to this note Tulsa is also not the place one would expect to find, "The Edmund Wilson Library representing Wilson’s interests in literature and cultural affairs, including the Nabokov-Wilson letters, and rare hand-printed editions of Anais Nin’s early works", but that is where it is. Particularly since his son taught at Western for years and still has a cubicle in the Weldon Library there. (Another aside: The Churchillian is found fairly close by in Fulton, MO.)
   Although Western University does not have a press, for years Hume Studies originated from the campus.
    Since I am not sure I have met the gender quota, I will mention that many such journals are about women. See: The Journal of the Sylvia Townsend Warner Society. 
     For the rationale for "Periodical Ramblings" see here.  For samples of the journals covered see, for example: this one about Flair or this one about The Wilson Quarterly or this one about The Sewanee Review.

Periodical Ramblings (7)

Weatherwise

I discovered this interesting magazine in the old periodical room in Weldon Library at Western University and was reminded of it because of two recent articles issuing from that university. Weatherwise covers the climate, weather and meteorology from a variety of different perspectives and the two pieces from Western News indicate that some scholars at Western are now studying those subjects. They are likely to find the periodical useful as will the many others who are increasingly interested in the climate and the way it has changed. 

      Professor MacEachern of the History Department was somehow able to get Environment Canada to send him a considerable amount of data AND somehow able to convince the folks in the Archives and Research Collections Centre to house the material which consists of two parts: “The first part comprises all existing meteorological observations generated at thousands of weather stations across Canada, from the predecessor agencies of Environment Canada, from 1840-1960….”The second part of the collection consists of 250 volumes of journals, observations, letter books, and correspondence related to Canadian meteorological and climatological history, and spanning the 1820s to the 1960s.” 

     Professor Melitta Adamson a “ Modern Languages and Literatures professor and food historian is among the first scholars in her field to document how climate change, with its critical impact on food production, shaped the Middle Ages (or Medieval Period) through famine, disease and war.” 

     Those interested in their work should see: 1) “Canada Researcher Unboxing Canada’s Climate History,” Adela Talbot, Western News, June 12, 2018 and 2) “Professor Tracks Medieval Winds of (Climate) Change, Aniruddho Chokroborty-Hoque, Western News, June 12, 2018.

 

The two covers above will indicate why, in the old days, Weatherwise was often seen on the re-shelving shelves and frequently used, even if only by the odd faculty member who had wandered in to avoid grading. Here is how the magazine describes itself: “Weatherwise features fascinating articles and spectacular color photographs that showcase the power, beauty, and excitement of weather. Weatherwise articles present the latest discoveries and hottest issues in meteorology and climatology and focus on the relation of weather to technology, history, culture, art, and society. In each issue, our expert columnists answer reader questions about the weather; discuss current events and people in the news; review new weather-related books and videos; test reader forecast skills with analysis of weather maps; and summarize recent weather events in the United States and Canada.” As they mention, Canadian weather information is often provided and here is a partial sample: “Hail and High Water,”, Malcolm Geast, Oct/.Nov.1996: “One of the worst flooding disasters in Canadian history devastated parts of Quebec in July, as eight inches of rain in less than 48 hours triggered flash flooding in the Seguenay (sic) River valley, killing ten people. The flood, coupled with several ferocious hailstorms in Winnipeg and Calgary, resulted in over half a billion dollars in damages and made for a memorable summer north of the border.”

And, way back in 1956 you will find “A Short History of the Meteorological Service of Canada,” Vol.9, 1956, No.2

Historians interested in the weather only as it affected an historical event will find examples such as these: On the Halifax explosion -” Retrospect: December 6, 1907: Halifax Explosion,” Sean Potter, Vol. 70, 2017, No.6 “U.S. Weather Synoptic Weather Map for 1300 GMT (9:00 a.m. AST) December 6, 1917. An area of high pressure helped create cool, clear conditions for Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the morning of an explosion that would prove to be the deadliest disaster in Canadian history. Meanwhile, a developing coastal low to the southwest would move up the Atlantic coast over the following 24 hours, bringing heavy snow and blizzard conditions to the area, hampering relief efforts.”

The military historians will enjoy: “The Weather of Independence: Burgoyne's Northern Campaign”, David M. Ludlum, Vol. 29, , 1976 No.5, and “Friend and Foe: Weather and the War of 1812,” Stephen Vermette, Vol. 65, 2012, No.1 I know you are interested in the weather and are now curious about this serial, but before you run up to the lovely campus you should know that the print Weatherwise was cancelled and most of the volumes are in storage. Over the years, hundreds of periodical subscriptions had to be cancelled at Western and that is the case at other universities as well. That bad news has to be followed quickly with the good news that the Western Libraries has been able to continue subscribing to the electronic version. It is available via three different vendors so, if you are associated with Western, you can read the periodical from afar and not have to visit the old periodical room. But, I need to quickly also add that you will not be able to access all the issues of Weatherwise electronically, including most of the articles mentioned above. The magazine began in 1948 and the Western Libraries have a healthy print run going back to 1950. But the oldest issues one can access electronically via the Western Libraries catalogue are from 1990. One can search the archives of Weatherwise from their site and get articles from before the 1990s either by subscribing to the publication or paying per article. One can also search the back issues from one of the vendors provided by Western (Taylor & Francis), but they also ask you to pay per article for the older ones. It is highly likely that the library could not afford to buy access to the complete electronic file - and keep in mind that the journal had already been purchased once.

(Tip: Search Weatherwise from their site or via Taylor & Francis in the Western Library catalogue and then ask for the journal to be retrieved from storage. Another tip is to ask a bona fide librarian.)

Sources:

The series "Periodical Ramblings" so far has considered: The Sewanee Review, Fortune, The Village Voice, Flair and the Wilson Quarterly. For its rationale see: Periodical Ramblings (The Series) Professor Adamson, mentioned above is also the author of Food in the Middle Ages : A Book of Essays. If you are interested in the history of food, see my recent post about sources for that subject: Food History. If you are really, really interested in that subject see my brief essay on "Clean Eating" (which, you should be warned, has a section on "placenta eating"). If you are more of a locavore see Local Food.

Finding books about the history of weather and its cultural impact can be tricky. Here are two that will illustrate how scholars are now looking at things with weather in mind.

For a look at the weather as experienced by Lewis and Clark see: Lewis & Clark: Weather and Climate Data from the Expedition Journals, edited by Vernon Preston. It is available as an ebook from the Western Libraries:

 "The Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1803-1806 systematically recorded weather and climate data during their 4,162-mile journey across largely uncharted territory. This data, organized by date and complemented by route descriptions and 50 color photos and historical maps, creates a fascinating look at the weather-related challenges that, at times, nearly derailed the Corps of Discovery from completing its mission and  returning safely. Lewis and Clark is both a compelling read for weather and history buffs and a key resource for scientists  researching climate history."

     For a literary example see: Weatherland: Writers and Artists under English Skies by Alexandra Harris.

"Writers and artists across the centuries, looking up at the same skies and walking in the same brisk air, have felt very different things and woven them into their novels, poems and paintings... 'Weatherland' is both a sweeping panorama of cultural climates on the move and a richly illustrated, intimate account - for although weather, like culture, is vast, it is experienced physically, emotionally and spiritually; as Harris cleverly reveals, it is at the very core of what it means to be English."

(also available at Western)

Periodical Ramblings (6)

Flair

It was not my intention in this series about serials to include within it, Flair, a magazine that only existed for 12 issues during 1950/51. I learned about it when I learned about Fleur Cowles, about whom I posted some information a while back. She produced the magazine for those we now refer to as ‘One Percenters’, and she was one herself. It was a costly production and after losing around $200,000 per issue, the publication ceased. A very short-lived fashion magazine seems hardly worth considering, but I will make a short case for doing so here.

   If you picture a very good book for children - the kind which has holes in the pages for peek-a-boo, and things which you pull and tug - and then populate it with people like the Duke and Duchess of York, Julien Freud and Hemingway rather than Piggly-Wiggly, you can begin to imagine what a copy of Flair looked like. Apart from the special paper, inserts and beautiful illustrations, there were often postcards and self-contained booklets. One issue even had scented pages.

   Flair was such an unusual and sumptuous periodical, you can even purchase it today - as a massive coffee-table book. When I was looking for information about the magazine, I discovered that the university nearby had a copy, although they would not have had a subscription to such a magazine back in 1950. The Best of Flair that I examined was published by Rizzoli in 2014 and an earlier edition was produced by HarperCollins in 1996. You can easily purchase a copy. Before you order, look at the Rizzoli video provided below.

   Another reason I decided to devote some time to Flair has to do with the fact that the copy I examined is dedicated to an unknown American soldier. Here is the explanation offered by Ms Cowles in the introduction:

“Many years ago, I received an anonymous letter which reads as follows”:

Dear Fleur Cowles,

    I have just been drafted to be sent to Vietnam. I don’t believe in war. I don’t believe in this one.  I shall probably be killed and if not, I shall probably just stand up and let it happen.

   I have nothing in this world worth leaving to anyone but my twelve issues of your magazine, FLAIR. They are on their way to you.

“The following pages have all been reproduced from the gift of this unknown American soldier -- to whom I now dedicate this book.”

Sources:

  To see what I have attempted to describe, view this short video: “The Best of Flair: The Magazine That Became an Art Form".

  For more covers such as the one above: “5 Covers of Flair: The Most Beautiful Magazine You’ve Never Heard Of,” Alex Beggs, Vanity Fair, Sept. 2014.

  “Fleur’s Flair,” Dan Piepenbring,  Paris Review, Jan. 20, 2015.

  

 Fleur Cowles died in 2009. “Fleur Cowles, 101, Is Dead: Friend of the Elite and the Editor of a Magazine For Them,” Enid Nemy, The New York Times, June 8, 2009.

She was quite interesting; have a quick look at her Wikipedia entry.

Here are some examples of the content found in The Best of Flair:

There is a section called “It’s About Time” which was a regular feature that allowed writers to complain. There are contributions from Margaret Mead, Simone De Beauvoir and Barbara Ward.

Michener has a travel piece on Hawaii and in the literature section you will find: Mary Hemingway, “Life with Papa”; Tallulah Bankhead, “On Satchmo” and

Tennessee Williams , “The Resemblance Between a Violin Case and a Coffin.”

There is a piece by Gypsy Rose Lee talking about her carnival experiences and Jean Cocteau writes, “ A Letter to Americans.”

The last section - “Smile and Farewell” contains cartoons about the hole in the cover that was a characteristic of Flair and which was referred to as the ‘cover cut-out.’

Periodical Ramblings (5)

Prairie Schooner

     Prairie Schooner is one of those periodicals you would have noticed in libraries that had dark shelving and lamps, and to which you would have been drawn by the good title. It has been around for over ninety years and, unlike most literary magazines, could be around a lot longer. It is published by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where the labour is supplied by those in the English Department. That, in and of itself, is no guarantee of longevity these days, but Prairie Schooner has a patron and the Glenna Luschei Fund for Excellence ensures that it is endowed in perpetuity.

     It is a literary little magazine which means that it contains a lot of poetry and fiction, along with some interviews and reviews. You can subscribe to the quarterly for $28 (US) and you can have a peek at what it provides here. While most of the magazine is safely behind a firewall, one can look at the accompanying blog and read reviews and “Poetry News in Review.” As well, the journal supports an annual “Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction.”

     Canadian readers can be assured that it does have some Canadian content and accepts contributions from Canadians. Back in 1993, “Prairie Schooner advertised widely throughout Canada in literary journals and writers’ newsletters, sent letters to dozens of women in an attempt to find the best, the most interesting, the most gifted and original and crafty (archaic: skillful, dexterous) women writers in Canada.” The result was an entire issue on “Canadian Women Writers,” which also includes an interview with Margaret Atwood (Vol.67, No.4, Winter, 1993). Thirty years before that issue there was one devoted to Malcolm Lowry which also includes an essay by Earle Birney (Vol. 37, No.4, Winter, 1963). More recently, Canadian sports fans should see the issue devoted to sports, (Winter, 2015) where you will find a poem about Jordin Tootoo. Foodies will also find a special issue devoted to that subject and an essay about herring and Grand Manan island (Winter, 2016).

     If you are an ardent nationalist, unwilling to read anything published south of Point Pelee, you have a Canadian option - Prairie Fire: A Canadian Magazine of New Writing. 

Post Script:

     If you are curious about the type of person who funds such a literary endeavour you can learn more about Glenna Luschei (also known as Glenna Berry-Horton) by consulting Vol. 78, No.4, 2004 of Prairie Schooner. Apart from being generous, she also looks to be quite interesting. Among other hobbies, interests and vocations she is an avocado rancher.

     The university close by (Western) has a fairly good print run from 1927 to around 1980, but these volumes are all in a storage facility. Electronic access is provided to both the back and current issues via various electronic vendors such as JSTOR and Project Muse.

     I will offer this slight bonus to the bibliophiles among my many readers. If you go looking more deeply for Prairie Schooner, you will learn that there are a couple of others produced by those who also thought the title attractive. They were newsletters published by people who found themselves in the Civilian Conservation Corps back in the 1930s. You can learn more here.

Periodical Ramblings (4)

The Wilson Quarterly

    Canada is one of eight nations (conveniently ignoring the indigenous ones) in the Arctic Council and as Canadians we tend to look north and think most of it belongs to us. On this blustery Arctic-like day, I can perform a civic duty while conveniently inside and point you to some of the articles on the Far North in a recent issue of The Wilson Quarterly:

THE CHALLENGE OF ARCTIC GOVERNANCE
BY DOUGLAS C. NORD
Governance is challenging in any context, but it becomes even more complex when attempted in an area that, until recently, has had little experience with regional decision-making.

CHANGING CLIMATES FOR ARCTIC SECURITY
BY SHERRI GOODMAN
Shaped by changing climates – political as well as planetary – our understanding of security in the Arctic has morphed since the Cold War and continues to take on new forms.

THE ARCTIC ENVIRONMENT IN THE AGE OF MAN
BY ROSS A. VIRGINIA
The Arctic is hurtling into the Anthropocene, and caribou, walruses, and even mosquitoes are responding.

THE ARCTIC, FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY
BY MICHAEL SFRAGA
From oil paintings and poetry to militarization and melting (and yes, even video games), our quest to understand the region at the top of the planet continues – and the stakes today are higher than ever.

LANGUAGES OF THE ARCTIC
“The languages of the Arctic - carriers of the culture and identity of the region’s people - are fighting for their survival. In this special interactive project, explore the linguistic diversity and human spirit of the Far North.”
A special project by The Wilson Quarterly [this will take you to a very interesting YouTube presentation].

     Unfortunately you cannot run to the local newsstand (which is probably far away) or to the nearest Indigo and grab a copy of The Wilson Quarterly. Fortunately you can read it here. The print publication which began over forty years ago had to cease publishing print copies about five years back. You are probably saying "So What?, I can read it without getting cold.”  Still, I would like to suggest that something has been lost and, besides, it gives me another excuse to ramble among the periodicals we used to find in good libraries and even at newsstands on a nearby corner.

     The first thing you should know is that it was a much better reader's digest than the other one. The first thirty to forty pages were devoted to alerting you to what was being published in various magazines and journals. This section, (initially called "Periodicals" and later "The Periodical Observer" and still later, "In Essence"), offered thorough summaries and digests of articles that were much longer than typical abstracts.  If you are a researcher interested in in the intellectual or popular culture of, say the late 1970s, you could learn a lot by grabbing a single issue of The Wilson Quarterly from that period. 

     In the first issue in the autumn of 1976 the editor, Peter Braestrup, indicates that The Wilson Quarterly “ is designed to bring the world of scholars and specialists to the intelligent lay reader" and that is what it did. There were articles, book reviews, interviews and "clusters" of essays on particular subjects, such as the Arctic cluster in the current issue. The coverage was eclectic. Two of the books reviewed in the first issue demonstrate this: A River Runs Through It takes care of the subject of fish while Beautiful Swimmers deals with crabs. (That was a cheap way to get in a plug for the latter book which is about crabs and the Chesapeake Bay area - an area where I grew up. William Warner, the author of the book, did win a Pulitzer for it, however, and it does illustrate that the WQ was more than a political or economics journal.)

     The print publication was published by The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the digital one still is - for now. That such an interesting periodical, even with some 'institutional' support, has to struggle is unfortunate. As one 'obituary' writer noted when the print edition ceased:

     "I'd hate to see The Wilson Quarterly fold," said Daniel Akst, a longtime contributing editor, and author of "We Have Met the Enemy: Self-Control in an Age of Excess." "Few publications are as reliably (and pleasurably) non-hysterical, historically informed and pragmatic in outlook. WQ's infrequent publication schedule has only made it more precious in this day of unlimited instantaneous blab."

Some Sources:
     An article about the first issue of The Wilson Quarterly notes that the initial press run was 80,000 and that it cost $12.
“The Wilson Quarterly, Review of Ideas, Issued,” The New York Times, Oct. 19, 1976. It says that “ the 160 page review is a digest of articles that have appeared earlier elsewhere, as well as a printed record of excerpts from discussions at the center. It also contains reprints from books, short book reviews, and recommended background reading lists on subjects it treats. There is an original article, on Brazil, and a reprint of Russell Lyne’s 1949 Harper’s piece entitled, “Highbrow, Lowbrow, Middlebrow,” with Lyne’s recent reflections on his 1949 selections.’

For two articles about the demise of the print edition see:
“Wilson Quarterly to End Print Publication,” Jennifer Schuessler, The New York Times, June 9, 2012.
“The Wilson Quarterly, the 36-year-old general interest magazine published by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, has announced that it will put out its final print issue in July….”
“Mr. Lagerfeld said he did not know the magazine's current circulation figures, but a blog post at the Nieman Journalism Lab noted that the Wilson Center spent $1.96 million on the magazine against $950,000 revenue in 2010. The Wilson Quarterly's spring issue, currently on newsstands, is titled ''The Age of Connection,'' and includes several articles on the promise and perils of the digital age.”

“Wilson Center May Sell or Fold its Esteemed Wilson Quarterly, as Readership Declines; The Wilson Center’s 37-year-old Publication Center has Struggled to Find a Footing in the Digital World.”Manuel Roig-Franzia, Washington Post, Sept. 8, 2013.
“The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars is exploring selling or ceasing publication of The Wilson Quarterly, a wise, wonky and sometimes witty magazine that showcases the work of renowned intellectuals and policy experts but has struggled to find a footing in the digital world, according to sources.
The quarterly abruptly canceled its print edition last year, shifting its focus to digital platforms such as the Kindle and iPad, as well as its Web site. But readership has declined, and the cachet of a 37-year-old publication that once cultivated a loyal and elite audience drawn to its special brand of brainy, yet accessible, writing has slipped.”
The quotation by Akst is from the article above.


     
Fortunately the archive is provided on the web site, although the link is not immediately apparent. You will find it here.

  To conclude with some Canadian content, here is a sample from the first issue.
This is a summary of an article by George Woodcock that appeared in The American Scholar. 

“Rediscovering The Noble Savage: “The Lure of the Primitive" by George Woodcock, in The American Scholar (Summer 1976), 1811 Q st., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20009. “Although many scholars have studied vanishing primitive cultures, few have asked why civilized man is so fascinated nowadays by what Europeans used to call "savage cultures." Woodcock, editor of Canadian Literature, writes that Portuguese voyages to Africa and the discovery of America first brought Europeans into contact with primitive peoples. They were regarded as inferior pagan beings, "as unspoiled children to be converted into imitation Christian gentlemen," or simply exploited for commercial purposes (the ivory trade and slavery). Paralleling these derogatory attitudes, there emerged among rationalist thinkers in the late seventeenth century the romantic cult of the Noble Savage. Real knowledge percolated slowly into Europe from the reports of travelers, missionaries, and traders. Then came Charles Darwin's The Descent of Man (1871) and the slow development of anthropology. Not until early in the twentieth century was primitive man seen "as the representative of a complex, valid way of life contemporaneous with our own, neither intrinsically inferior nor necessarily improvable." Woodcock says such recognition came about largely through shifts in perception among Western artists and intellectuals: Picasso, who discovered African art and in 1907 painted the pioneer work of cubism, Les Demoiselles d'dvignon-like primitive art, a projection of inner visions; Sir James Frazier, whose 12-volume The Golden Bough (1907) revealed a worldwide network of common mental constructions -including the mythologizing habit we share with primitives; and the pioneering field studies by Anglo-Polish anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski in the Trobriand Islands of the western Pacific. The lure of the primitive, says Woodcock, lies both in a desire to find what is common to all societies and "in a pointless nostalgia for peoples and ways of existence that our greed for land and resources has destroyed." 

PERIODICAL RAMBLINGS (3)

The VILLAGE VOICE

    I am not sure if I would have included this publication among my ramblings, but I will take time on this fine late summer morning to let you know that the print version of The Village Voice will soon cease to exist. Those of you who lean to the right and those with relatively ‘normal’ sexual proclivities are likely not to care much. It did certainly tend to tilt left and the back pages were filled with advertisements for various sexual services and devices that most found to be rather mysterious.

    Still, it was a major publication that published established and well-known authors. One of the founders was Norman Mailer. It was hardly parochial and covered subjects of interest to those who lived outside of Greenwich. One of its owners was Rupert Murdoch. It received some Pulitzers. If you don’t believe me, consider this:

    “The Village Voice was founded in 1955. It is one of the most successful enterprises in the history of American journalism. It began as a neighborhood paper serving an area about a tenth the size of the Left Bank, in Paris, and it became, within ten years, a nationally known brand and the inspiration for a dozen other local papers across the country. By 1967, it was the best-selling weekly newspaper in the United States, with a single-day circulation higher than the circulations of ninety-five per cent of American big-city dailies. It survived the deaths of four other New York City newspapers and most of its imitators, and it has had a longer life than the weekly Life. But, in books about the modern press, it is given a smaller role than it deserves.”   “It Took a Village: How the Voice Changed Journalism,” Louis Menand, The New Yorker, Jan. 5, 2009.

     Although the website remains it is unfortunate that the print version will disappear. I think the passing of such publications deserves at least a passing mention.  I am heading to Vancouver soon and I will let you know if the Georgia Straight is still around. It was last year and, like The Village Voice, it still had ‘those’ ads.

Post Script

    The “death” of the print version of The Village Voice was announced in August 2017. See, for example:

“After 62 Years and Many Battles, Village Voice Will End Print Publication, John Leland and Sara Maslin Nir, The New York Times, Aug. 22, 2017

“GENERATIONS OF VILLAGE VOICE WRITERS REFLECT ON THE PAPER LEAVING THE HONOR BOXES:THE END OF AN ERA. Luke O’Neil, Esquire, Aug. 23, 2017.

“10 EX–VILLAGE VOICE STAFFERS SHARE WHAT THEY LEARNED—AND WHY THE PAPER MATTERED,” Zach Schonfeld, et al, Newsweek, Aug. 25, 2017.

    Here is the website for The Village Voice. I could not determine how far back the archive goes, but I did some searches and found articles from over a decade ago.

   The London Public Library did not get it, but Western University did, although the subscription was cancelled. It is available in the Weldon Library on microform for the years 1996-2015. Those associated with Western can access some years via various electronic vendors.

All is not lost. One can read a couple of compilations:

The Village Voice Anthology (1956-1980) : Twenty-five years of Writing From the Village Voice, edited by Geoffrey Stokes.

The Village Voice Reader : a Mixed Bag From the Greenwich Village Newspaper, Daniel Wolf.

Music Downtown : Writings From The Village Voice, Kyle Gann.

For two books about The Village Voice see:

The Great American Newspaper : The Rise And Fall Of The Village Voice,  Kevin Michael McAuliffe.

Writing The Record : The Village Voice And The Birth Of Rock Criticism, Devon Powers.

For over forty years The Village Voice was also the place one could find the cartoons of Jules Feiffer who won a Pulitzer in 1986.

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: