The Saturday Evening Post

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Note: There have been other minor publications also called the Saturday Evening Post; several were/are local British newspapers.
A cover of the Saturday Evening Post from 1903, Otto von Bismarck illustrated by George Gibbs.
A cover of the Saturday Evening Post from 1903, Otto von Bismarck illustrated by George Gibbs.

The Saturday Evening Post was a weekly magazine published in the United States from August 4, 1821 to February 8, 1969. From 1897, it was published by Curtis Publishing Company. Curtis claimed the Post was descended from The Pennsylvania Gazette founded in 1728 by Benjamin Franklin, although the magazine's first issue was published more than 30 years after Franklin's death. According to historians, and the circulation numbers, the magazine gained prominent status under the leadership of its editor (1899-1937) George Horace Lorimer.

Contents

[edit] Description and history

Its contents consisted primarily of articles on current events and pieces of well-written popular fiction in mainstream genres, at least one of which was usually run in serial format over several issues. These were supplemented by single-panel cartoons, small human-interest, humorous or poetic filler pieces (often reader-contributed), editorials, a letter column, and quality interior illustrations of both stories and advertising plus illustrated covers. In March 1916 Lorimer agreed to meet Norman Rockwell, a 22 year old artist from New York. He immediately accepted two front covers he had produced and commissioned three more. Rockwell did covers and illustrations for the magazine through 1963, and gained his public fame by these works; several of these are among his critically best-acclaimed works. Other artists also gained fame by contributing Post covers, for example Nebraska artist John Philip Falter. Fiction authors included the likes of John Steinbeck, William Saroyan, John P. Marquand, Paul Gallico, Kay Boyle, C. S. Forester, Hammond Innes, Sax Rohmer, Louis L'Amour, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Agatha Christie, Rex Stout, Joseph C. Lincoln, C. S. Lewis, Brian Cleeve, and Ray Bradbury. P. G. Wodehouse said "the wolf was always at the door" until The Saturday Evening Post gave him his "first break" in 1915 by serialising Something New.[1]

Along with many other general-interest magazines, the Post saw a decline in the late 1950s and 1960s, generally attributed to the rise of television. In addition, interest in the Post's style of fiction and its conservative editorial bent declined during the advent of American counterculture. "Name" authors were drawn to more libertine magazines like Playboy as a high-status and high-paying venue for their work. Increasingly, the Post turned to articles on more current and fashionable topics, using cheaper photographic covers and advertisements.

An account of the final years of the Post (1962-1969) by Otto Friedrich, the magazine's last managing editor, was published as Decline and Fall (Harper & Row, 1970). Friedrich acknowledged that times were against the Post, but insisted that the magazine was of high quality and appreciated by its readers, attributing the financial difficulties largely to unimaginative and incompetent corporate management at Curtis.

The demise of the Post came after the magazine ran an article implying that football coaches Paul "Bear" Bryant and Wally Butts had conspired to "fix" a game between the University of Alabama and the University of Georgia. Butts sued and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court, where it became a landmark libel case (Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U.S. 130 (1967)). Butts ultimately won, and the magazine was ordered to pay $3,060,000 in damages.

In 1971, the Post was revived, first as a quarterly [2], then as a bi-monthly publication specializing in health and medical breakthroughs. The magazine is currently published six times a year by the "Benjamin Franklin Literary & Medical Society", a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

In 1958, Mad Magazine published a satire of the Post titled "The Saturday Evening Pest," whose first page shows a spoof of a Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving scene (pipe-smoking painter "Norman Shockwell" smirks at the reader from one corner); the cover announces articles such as "Our State Department--Do We Need It?" by Joseph and Stewart Allslop" (Joseph and Stewart Alsop) and "This Isn't Exactly What I Had in Mind" by Benjamin Franklin.

[edit] Editors

(from the purchase by Curtis, 1898)

  • William George Jordan (1898-1899)
  • George Horace Lorimer (1899-1937)
  • Wesley Winans Stout (1937-1942)
  • Ben Hibbs (1942-1962)
  • Robert Fuoss (1962)
  • Robert Sherrod (1962)
  • Clay Blair, Jr. (1962-1964)
  • William A. Emerson, Jr. (1965-1969)
  • Beurt SerVaas (1971-1975)
  • Cory SerVaas, M.D. (1975-present)

[edit] Cover gallery

May 20, 1905. Illustrated by N. C. Wyeth

December 28, 1907. Cover by J. C. Leyendecker.

[edit] Popular culture

  • Steve Allen wrote a song inspired by the magazine's title.

[edit] See also

Similar magazines

[edit] References

  1. ^ The Art of Fiction - P.G. Wodehouse (pdf). The Paris Review 21 (2005 (reprint)). Retrieved on 2008-06-09.
  2. ^ Anonymous. "Return of the Post", Time Magazine, June 14, 1971. Retrieved on 2008-04-12. 

[edit] External links