Talk:Life (magazine)

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[edit] Life Magazine controversies?

I have a controversy that I'd like to add to the Life entry -- an interesting article about the 1938 pregnancy issue that was pulled from newstands because it was obscene. Here's the article - When Birth was Obscene: Court case puts pregnancy back on newsstands. Thoughts on where this might go or if its relevant for the article at all? Sexperts 21:22, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

That is a very good item about the magazine, and a story that I left out when I did a major addition to the article about 6 months back. I could add in the text I had deleted, it was about 50 words. It was a big national story; the magazine printed stills from a documentary of a mother giving birth. It was such a scandal, news dealers were jailed for selling the issue in some cities. --K72ndst 21:53, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
Possibly we could combine this article with other life magazine controversies of a similar scale? Sexperts 22:38, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I think that is a good idea for a Level 2 Headline and subject area. As long as there are references cited. I've long wanted more facts added to this article, and not just more covers and trivia. Which other controversies do you want to bring in? --K72ndst 22:43, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Old Vs. New LIFE

I propose splitting this "new" version of LIFE -- the edition that is a Sunday newspaper insert in 2006 -- out of this article. I am prompted because I just looked (4/16/2006) at what is being passed off as LIFE these days. It was 20 pages, and half were ads. It bears only one resemblence to the the classic LIFE magazine -- the logo on the cover. I think this article as it stands now does a poor job of presenting 100 years of the life of LIFE. If anyone wants to weigh in on this, please do so. Because this article, and the list of Sunday papers that carries the current incarnation of this great American magazine, is pretty weak. --K72ndst 02:53, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone have any input into the history of this entry? I would like to revamp it, and rework it so it is more like what is here for The New Yorker. This article is in sad shape, and all that happens to it is people add and delete cover images from it. I'd add more history and scope to it. --K72ndst 20:56, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
I am currently compiling information to add quite a bit more to this article. If nobody objects: is anyone seriously attached to keeping as part of the article the list of the seventy newspapers that carry the supplent? Or Life's ten most important events of the second millennium, and Life's 100 most important people of the second millennium? I aim to write a history of the magazine from 1883 to 2007, and these lists just don't fly with me. We can link off to them, as they are part of the official Life Web site. I am looking forward to having a better article, so that others can contribute to its rich history. If nobody objects in the next two weeks, I may revise it. I'd also want to hear comments about adding to the article too. I think the article can be as good as the one about The New Yorker. --K72ndst 21:00, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I agree that the article needs work and to split off the new use of the name seems a good idea. I am interested in the magazine, but particularly in Ed Thompson and the "trio of formidable and colorful women: Sally Kirkland, fashion editor; Mary Letherbee, movie editor; and Mary Hamman, modern living editor"; and their influence on the magazine throughout the 1950s. Doc ♬ talk 19:25, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] LIFE or Life?

We have Life magazine and Time Magazine. Which should it be? -- Zoe

AOLTW doesn't capitalize the m so neither should we. -- Minesweeper
Shouldn't it be TIME magazine and LIFE magazine? Kingturtle 00:54 Apr 27, 2003 (UTC)
I think that's probably correct. -- Zoe
It should be neither. Since "magazine" isn't actually part of the official name, it should be a disambiguation word, in parentheses, like so: Life (magazine). —Lowellian (talk) 15:51, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

Despite that, somebody has recently gone through the article changing "Life" to LIFE". While accepting that the publisher usually (always?) wrote/writes it as "LIFE", I have reverted this change, for the following reasons:

  • It has not been asserted that "LIFE" is an acronym ("Living Interiors for a Friendly Environment", etc.).
  • There is no evidence that the magazine has been referred to in conversation as "ell-eye-eff-ee".
  • Many companies, e.g. Sanyo, consistently capitalize their own tradenames; Wikipedia ignores this.
  • Libraries often, perhaps usually, refrain from capitalizing it. For example, see the Library of Congress record for the 1936-72 Life. (This is record circa 180 if you use the LoC's "Advanced Search" interface for "Life" as "Key title [serials].)
  • No reputable manual of style ("Chicago", etc.) that I know of recommends such capitalization.
  • In my opinion (perhaps not shared by you, but very likely shared by quite a lot of other people), the capitalization within running prose is unsightly.
  • In my opinion (again perhaps not shared by you), it would show grotesque obsequiousness toward this publishing company.
  • It would open the door to similar requests that would be more awkward to satisfy; e.g. a request that WP should respect some other magazine's (merely design-motivated) avoidance of a dot over the "i" within its title.
  • Requests would probably made to revert it if AOL-Time-Life-Warner-Murdoch-Sony (or whatever it will be called by then) ever decided to give a "design makeover" to the rump Life by deciding to do away with the FULL CAPS. And there could then be tiresome arguments over this, e.g. "Why change the capitalization within this WP article of the real LIFE merely because a much later, much less significant and (other than via possession of the trademark) virtually unrelated travesty is titled Life?"
  • the relevant part of Wikipedia's own MoS advises against it.

'Nuff said? -- Hoary 05:18, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

That's all well said, however it ingores the fact that it is titled LIFE. It's titled LIFE and is pronounced Life even though they named it in all caps that doesn't mean the caps are initials. The consensus on this is sketchy, see iPod for an example. Quadzilla99 15:23, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Old Life vs newer one

Didn't they quit publishing Life a few years ago? -- goatasaur

They have annual publications of the best photos of the year, and special publications dealing with a single event every once in a while. -- Zoe
The article had no mention of the earlier popular "Life Magazine" of Charles Dana Gibson. I had thought that somehow that metamorphisized into the Henry Luce publication, I guess they were unconnected? -- Infrogmation 11:42, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I added more to the article about the "old" Life that you are talking about. It was a classic publication and 180-degrees different than the Luce magazine. --K72ndst 16:55, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is this a commercial posting?

This looks like an advert for the new 'Life'. <rant>IMHO the new Life is a pathetic excuse to put more advertising in my paper. It is basically content free. Except for the name and the cover layout it in no way resembles it's namesake. Even 'Parade' has more content.</rant> Note that 'Parade' magazine has a one line entry in Wikipedia.

I expected this entry to describe the old 'Life' magazine that documented the depression, WWII, the 50's, the space race, etc.

I agree with you. I think it would be wise to chop out the list of the 70 newspapers that carry this insert. It could be better served by just having an external link to the same list. I also think the history of the magazine and its influence on pop culture needs to be beefed up. Less lists, more meat. --K72ndst 16:55, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ethnocentric

i read what the bloke wrote about the western focus, but im actually surprised there was any mention at all about china. usually in these gwai lo articles, there is no mention of the eastern world at all.

[edit] 8. Declaration of independence (US, 1776)

lol l cant believe the declaration of independence can be compared to any of these inventions.

  1. Bookprint (Johann Gutenberg, 1455)
  2. Discovery of New World (Christopher Columbus, 1492)
  3. A new major religion (Martin Luther, 1527)
  4. Steam engine starts industrial revolution (James Watt, 1769)
  5. Earth revolves around sun (Galileo Galilei, 1610)
  6. Germ theory of disease (Louis Pasteur, 1864; Robert Koch,1876)
  7. Gunpowder weapons (China, 1100)
  9. Adolf Hitler comes to power (1933)
 10. Compass goes to sea (China, 1117)
Nice cut and paste job, and how exactly are #'s 2 and 9 "inventions"? Quadzilla99 09:01, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unclear wording

I find the phrase "In 1908 Robert Ripley published his first cartoon in Life, later becoming first publisher of Charles Schulz of Peanuts fame" to be unclear. Does this mean Ripley later became Schulz' first publisher, or LIFE? 70.153.99.149

[edit] "almost incalculable" impact

We read of Life that:

Its impact on American public opinion, especially among the exploding suburban middle class in the U.S., was almost incalculable.

If this is meant literally, I'd find it plausible: it's hard to separate the impact on public opinion of one particular publication. However, I think that this is supposed to mean almost incalculably great. If so, this is a very large claim indeed. I don't say it's untrue, but I want to see evidence for it. -- Hoary 05:28, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I like your above comment. I've been working on collecting more material for this article. Although I like some of it, statements like the one you point out need to be refined. The magazine, in the past, was important to pop culture and American society, and that needs to be teased out more. It is one of the threads I am working on writing now. --K72ndst 15:40, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Thank you.
Life sold well and is widely discussed and I think I've seen it described as having been influential. I just hope any "sources" for the assertion that it was important and had a major impact aren't just parroting received ideas, and that this article can get some evidence. -- Hoary 15:50, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 1880s Life vs. 1930s Life

Although they share the same title, is the Life magazine that started in 1936 (and passim) really considered the same magazine as the one that started in the 1880s? This article is the only place I have ever seen the two magazines actually connected, and the current 70th anniversary celebrations make no reference to there being an earlier magazine. It would be helpful if there was some published source that linked the two as the same magazine (such is the case with the comic book vs. magazine incarnations of MAD which are considered the same ongoing publication). Otherwise all I see is someone buying the rights to the name Life and then starting a brand new publication from scratch. I know there are reproductions of the first 1936 issue available ... does it include any reference? Otherwise I might suggest splitting the article into one for the original Life and one for the second Life. (And no, I don't support splitting off the current weekly as, editorial content or lack thereof aside, it is clearly linked to the 1936 version). 23skidoo 13:45, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

I would be against splitting this article in half. Here is why. Historically, Wikipedia has treated the entire history of a subject as one article. I’m thinking of sports; check out the baseball articles on the New York Giants (baseball) and Seattle Pilots. Like Life, these were brand-names (franchises) purchased by others and re-launched as something new (and someplace else), yet their history as a defunct team is kept as part of its subject history on Wikipedia. The same is true with the fine article about the Jeep. Its history is not split apart from its current incarnation. I’d say the reason many do not know of the first version of Life is for a simple reason: none of us are 100 years old. If we were, and this was 1940, then we’d know that there was another version of Life before Time Inc. purchased it. In addition, just because Time Inc. does not acknowledge the first edition of its magazine doesn't preclude Wikipedia from having a thorough article on the history of the publication; this is an encyclopedia entry after all, not a corporate-designated anniversary issue. I like having the entire history of Life in one article to show the long history of the name, title, and magazine. --K72ndst 14:16, 16 October 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Famous people who appeared on the cover

What is the purpose of this section? It doesn't add anything to this article. It is not Encyclopedic content. I had dreams of submitting this article to be a featured article, but it won't be considered with junk like this list, or those Millenium lists. Your thoughts? --K72ndst 16:58, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree that this should be removed. Doc ♬ talk 22:09, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I -- Hoary 22:38, 25 October 2006 (UTC) -- have just now removed it. If anyone wishes to reuse it in some way, here it is:

Thanks for zapping that useless list. What improvements do you suggest for this article? I am looking to add more depth to the magazine's impact post-World War II and on the Baby Boomer generation. I think we gave the early history of the magazine a pretty good hit, now I'd like to learn more about why it's so ingrained in popular culture.... --K72ndst 02:04, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Early history of the Luce Life

K72ndst above: I think we gave the early history of the magazine a pretty good hit. I think it's well done in its way and I congratulate you on your efforts. However, when I read that this was the first all-photography news magazine I'm surprised. "All-photography" is a bit of an exaggeration; more factually, the text was condensed into captions for 50 pages of pictures. The magazine was printed on heavily coated paper that cost readers only a dime. Let's accept that the article's saying that it was the first magazine of its kind. But was it? Certainly it predated another rival in the memory of the anglophone world, Picture Post. However, I'm pretty sure I've read that it was if not modeled on then at least inspired by certain German magazines. The German article on Life is strangely silent about this, but a quick Google takes me to this. My ability in German is close to zero, but I think that Berliner Illustrirte [sic] Zeitung (from 1928) may have been one of those magazines. Time permitting (and I'm afraid it may not), I'll try to investigate. -- Hoary 08:36, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Are you thinking of the Soviets? A co-worker of mine, who used to work at Time Inc., pointed out that under Stalin, his propaganda machine turned out all-photo magazines for the Workers -- because they could not read. I do not know if this was before or after 1936. However, in research in American journalism history textbooks, I didn't come up with any magazine that used photojournalism in this way before Time Inc. When Luce started it, Life was almost entirely photos. I'm going to try and scan some early inside pages, but I'm worried about the copyright issues of doing so. I have not gotten far in deeper Life research, however, I did come across a hilarious account of trying to get on its cover in 1979, in Bo Derek's new book, of all places. I know. I'm reading it.--K72ndst 13:07, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

No, I didn't mean Soviet magazines; I meant German ones. (That's not to deny that there may have been Soviet predecessors as well.) I've seen photos by Erich Salomon that look as if they had been made for a proto-Life. But I could very well be wrong. I'll try to check. -- Hoary 13:56, 27 October 2006 (UTC) ... PS The Oxford Companion to the Photograph has an article on Life that doesn't mention its precursors. An article on Berliner illustrierte Zeitung says that at some time during the period 1905–33 it "became very influential as a showcase for a new brand of photojournalism embedded in modern page layouts". We also read that Münchener illustrierte Presse was "one of Central Europe's most successful and innovative illustrative weeklies" and that its editor 1930–33 was Stefan Lorant. An article on photojournalism lists a lot of magazines but says little about any; we do learn that Match (the predecessor of Paris-Match) started in 1926. And the article on Russia mentions several early illustrated magazines too. Hoary 14:21, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hayat

If I remember correctly Hayat means Life in turkish. I'll try to double check, but if someone else can confirm, please do. Doc ♬ talk 14:42, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

But even if it means "life" in Turkish, it needn't be about Life (the mag). I can't see anything looking like "Life", or "Luce", or a year....... Hoary 14:49, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Iconic"

"Iconic status", "iconic success": what, if anything, do these mean? Hoary 14:49, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalized?

In the section: "The Sixties and the end of an era", there's this paragraph:

In the 1960s, the magazine’s photographs featured those by Gordon Parks. “The camera is my weapon against the things I dislike about the universe and how I show the beautiful things about the universe,” Parks recalled in 2000. “I didn’t give a fucking shit about the magazine as far as im concerned its just a bunck of homosexual fagets taking it up the ass anyway and thats when I came out of the closet. I cared about the people,” he said. [8]

The section cites an interview from Rocky Mountain News with Gordon Parks which does exist (and you have to pay to look at): Rocky Mountain News, November 29, 2000

but I suspect the second quote is an act of vandalism. Can somebody check up on this? Clemwang 00:44, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I removed the second quote for now. Indeed, it is almost 100% certainly vandalism, but I do not subscribe to that newspaper so I don't know what the real quote is. It's not extremely important though, now that the vandalism is removed. Academic Challenger 01:20, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

A look through the history of the page shows that this was one of two changes made from a single IP number. It's just your standard adolescent editing pattern: common obsessions of these halfwits include the alleged homosexual activity of others and the alleged lower intelligence of foreigners and dark-skinned people. But gosh, no, we mustn't bite newcomer "white" male anglophone teens; we must instead be nice to them, in the hope and indeed expectation that they'll suddenly have changes of heart and contribute to erudite, excellently sourced articles about such matters as Renaissance architecture. (And if you believe they'll do that, would you care to buy a bridge off me?) -- Hoary 04:24, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Taylorblather

The article tells us:

Life ran a 6,000-word first-person article on the screen star. “I’m not a ‘sex queen’ or a ‘sex symbol,’ “ Taylor said. “I don’t think I want to be one. Sex symbol kind of suggests bathrooms in hotels or something. I do know I’m a movie star and I like being a woman, and I think sex is absolutely gorgeous. But as far as a sex goddess, I don’t worry myself that way... Richard is a very sexy man. He’s got that sort of jungle essence that one can sense... When we look at each other, it’s like our eyes have fingers and they grab ahold... I think I ended up being the scarlet woman because of my rather puritanical up bringing and beliefs. I couldn’t just have a romance. It had to be a marriage.”

Urgghhh.

Sorry. Perhaps I'd appreciate that more if I had the hots for Elizabeth Taylor. But really, what's it all for? (To show how low Life had sunk?) At the end of it, the article has no comment. I'm inclined to delete the whole quotation; any reason not to do so? -- Hoary 04:37, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Winston Churchill

Would it not be a good idea to have the picture of Winston Churchill as one of the photographs listed in the article? I believe it is he most reprinted picture in history Canking 14:16, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

This article is already illustrated with 11 covers. I don't think it needs more covers added; it needs more facts and examples of reporting, journalism, and historical significance. If you want to see more old covers, that's what Google can find for you. --K72ndst 16:59, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cover Vote

There are now 12 covers in this article, a considerable number. Can we take a poll/vote here that there are enough covers to illustrate this article? There are many other web sites that show Life covers. My vote: hold off on any more. --K72ndst 04:10, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Twelve is already too many. -- Hoary 14:49, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Split the article

The 1880s magazine was an entirely different animal from the 1930s one. The Luce Life marked its 50th anniversary in 1986, and never cited any history prior to 1936. Luce may have bought the rights to the name, but the product was as distinct from the Victorian magazine as it was from Life, the board game. We already have separate articles for publications with the same name; see New York Press and New York Press (historical); see New York Sun and New York Sun (historical). It's misleading to suggest the two Life magazines had a single history.--Idols of Mud 23:17, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I rewrote the introduction to make it clear the two magazines were distinct. I don't think Luce intended to re-vamp the old Life; his publication was a giant experiment in layout and photography, and had little to do with the old one.--Idols of Mud 23:42, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
We had a discussion about this above. The original Life was a success for a lot longer than the Time Inc. version, more than 50 years. And the reason that many don't recall the original Life is that none of us were around in 1936 when it was on sale. I do not think the article should be split in half because the editorial philosophy changed. Look at other publications that changed with the times, not just newspapers that ceased publication and were brought back from the dead. Keeping the two together shows it has a long and important history, splitting it in two just waters a good article into two. Any votes? --K72ndst 14:36, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
It's more a question of continuity. There were two Life magazines, but it's not the same as the two Punch magazines. Luce had no interest in maintaining the old Life's mailing list or features -- he sold both to The Judge and created something entirely different than the old Life. None of the staff of the old Life worked for the new one, and Luce Life contributors (like Margaret Bourke-White) had no connection to the old publication. It would be clearer, I think, to give each magazine a separate article.--Idols of Mud 17:38, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Commercial link?

Please look at this web site http://www.originallifemagazines.com. It appears to be an online store that sells back issues of Life. I do not think this article should link to it, per the commercial nature, and Wiki policy. Your thoughts? --K72ndst 22:24, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

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