About the Book
Print magazines were the original niche medium, creating communities long before the internet allowed audiences to find specialized content and interact with like-minded readers. Consumer magazines provided information, inspiration, empathy and advocacy for readers with specific goals and concerns. The targeted advertising business model of magazines was an early precursor of contemporary algorithms and metrics behind social media marketing.
The cultural niches 20th century consumer magazines created and covered were powerful social influences on a wide variety of readers, from farmers to feminists, and covered everything from big ideas to political ideologies. With missions to serve specific readers and editors who were champions of their interests, even the most practical magazines were cultural influences well beyond their pages.
This book is a curated collection of case studies that collectively shed light on the cultural niches that American consumer magazines of the 20th century covered and created. The chapters examine how cultural niches were cultivated, how they changed over time, and how they influenced broader cultural conversations. This sweeping view of 20th-century American magazines illuminates how this particular media form created, cultivated, and served specific communities, laying the groundwork for contemporary media forms to continue that role today.
Table of Contents:
[Eds are asking for brief essays--5000 each]
Introduction: The world of magazines in 20th century America
Sharon Bloyd-Peshkin and Charles Whitaker
In this introduction, Bloyd-Peshkin and Whitaker will provide foundational information about the consumer magazine landscape of the 20th century. This will include what magazines existed, the size and nature of their readership, the roles of editors, the emergence of some of the largest categories of magazines, the establishment of an advertising-supported business model, and other fundamental information about the consumer magazine landscape of 20th century America/ This introduction will help to contextualize the chapters to come, which focus on specific niches and the titles within them.
SECTION 1: Ideas and Ideologies
Chapter 1.An Intellectual History of Intellectual Magazines
Kevin M. Lerner, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Communication/Journalism, Marist College, and editor of the Journal of Magazine Media
Chapter 2: Speaking Out: Leftist Magazines and Political Advocacy
Erika J. Pribanic-Smith, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Communication, University of Texas, Arlington
Chapter 3: “Little Magazines”: The Outsized Influence of Literary Magazines
Pablo Calvi, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Journalism and Associate Director for Latin America for the Marie Colvin Center for International Reporting, SUNY Stonybrook
Chapter 4: Design of the Times: The Emergence of an American Aesthetic
Sheila Webb, Ph.D, Professor, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Western Washington University
SECTION 2: The Practical and the Personal
Chapter 5: Tilling Fertile Ground: The Groundbreaking Role of Farming Magazines
Catherine M. Staub, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Journalism, Drake University, and Chair of Magazine Journalism
Chapter 6: Fanzines: Sci-Fi, Punk and Everything In Between
Peggy Dillon, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Media and Communication at Salem State University
Chapter 7: American Folk Music Magazines: Counter-Hegemonic Voices of Social Transformation
Krystyna Henke, MA, journalist and author of audio CD “Nobel Voices for Disarmament, 1901-2000” (Smithsonian Folkways Recordings)
Chapter 8: The Making of Masculinity: Men’s Magazines of the 20th Century
Kevin M. Lerner, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Communication/Journalism, Marist College, and editor of the Journal of Magazine Media
Chapter 9: Defining Domesticity: Women’s Magazines from Magnolia Journal to Martha Stewart
Donna Harrington-Lueker, Ph.D., Professor of English and Communications, Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Salve Regina University
SECTION 3: The Familiar and the Future
Chapter 10: The Private Goes Public: Parenting Magazines and the Redefine Family Roles
Sharon Bloyd-Peshkin, Associate Professor of Journalism, Communication Department, Columbia College Chicago
Chapter 11: The Emergence of Ethnic Magazines
This chapter, not yet assigned, will look at how Black, Latino and Asian magazines both carved out and created a space for readers who didn’t see themselves in the pages of other publications.
Chapter 12: Urban Renewal: City Magazines and the Reimagining of Urbanity (or City Magazines and the Definition of Cosmopolitan Life)
Norma Green, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Columbia College Chicago
Chapter 13: Echoes into the Future: How the Lingua Franca of the Internet is Rooted in Magazines
Aileen Gallagher, Associate Professor of Magazine, News & Digital Journalism, S.I Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University
