The World Tomorrow (magazine)
The World Tomorrow: A journal looking toward a Christian world (1918–1934)[1] was an American political magazine, founded by the pacifist organization Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) and published in New York City by FOR's Fellowship Press at 108 Lexington Avenue.[2]
Editorial history
Main editors
The World Tomorrow seems to have had some paid and some unpaid editors, many of whom overlapped.
Its main editors were:
- 1918–1921: Norman Thomas, six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America, served as the magazine's first editor.[3] In 1921, Thomas moved to secular journalism as associate editor of The Nation magazine.
- 1918–1920 Walter Fuller. Styled ‘editorial secretary’ on the letterpaper of The New World (which changed its name to The World Tomorrow in June 1918), he was later called 'associate editor'. He did the actual work of editing for Norman Thomas, and was paid a regular salary. In February 1920, he moved on to become managing editor of The Freeman, although his name remained for a while on the list of members of the board of The World Tomorrow. When Fuller collapsed and died of a brain haemorrhage in September 1927, Norman Thomas sent a glowing eulogy to the BBC for whom Fuller was editing the Radio Times.
- 1922-1934: Devere Allen who edited the magazine for more than ten years, was a Socialist pacifist activist.[4] He championed nonviolent resistance while member of the Socialist Party of America in the 1930s and founded the Worldover Press.[5]
- 1922–1924: John Nevin Sayre served as editor of The World Tomorrow, 1922–1924 (then as associate secretary, 1924–1935).[6][7] Sayre was an Episcopal minister, peace activist, and author and also helped found the Episcopal Peace Fellowship. Sayre's brother, Assistant Undersecretary of State Francis B. Sayre, had Alger Hiss reporting directly to him at the State Department but declined to testify on his behalf. (His brother also married the daughter of Woodrow Wilson.)
- 1922–1926: Anna Rochester was a FOR member who served as editor-in-chief (1922–1926), then resigned in 1927 over political differences. Within a month, she received an invitation to join the magazine's board, which she declined.[8][9]
- 1926–1934: Kirby Page (1890–1957) was an American Disciples of Christ minister, an author, and a peace activist.[10]
Other staff
1920s
Reinhold Niebuhr contributed to the magazine in the 1920s and then became a part-time editor in the late 1920s or no later than 1931.[11] Niebuhr was a prominent American theologian and commentator on public affairs. He became an anti-communist in 1940, after starting as a leftist minister in the 1920s (indebted to theological liberalism) and a new Neo-Orthodox theologian in the 1930s.
Grace Hutchins, the life partner of Anna Rochester, was also a FOR member who worked for the magazine. Hutchins served as press secretary (1924–1926), business editor (1925–1926), and contributing editor.[9]
Esther Shemitz (later wife of Whittaker Chambers) and her close friend Grace Lumpkin worked for the magazine in the 1920s. Hutchins and Rochester were their art patrons, supporting Shemitz's painting and Lumpkin's writing, e.g., publication of To Make My Bread (1933).[12][13][14][15][16]
A.A. MacLeod, later a Communist member of the Ontario legislature, served as managing editor until 1933.
1930s
In the 1930s, Paul Howard Douglas, an economist at the University of Chicago, also served as [part-time?] editor. Henry Noel Brailsford contributed a weekly feature in the 1930s.[3]
Resurgence and demise
In August 1932, when many weekly magazines were reducing their publication frequency to monthly, Time reported that The World Tomorrow would go from a monthly to a weekly format. "The times in which we are now living demand a sustained emphasis upon religion, pacifism, and socialism, and... no other American journal is concentrating upon this combination." It noted editors were Kirby Page, Reinhold Niebuhr, Devere Allen, and Paul Douglas.[3]
Though it does not explain why the magazine closed, the FOR website states:
By 1934, its circulation had risen to 40,000. The World Tomorrow was succeeded in 1935 by Fellowship, edited by Harold Fey; later editors included John Nevin Sayre, Alfred Hassler, William Miller, James Forest, and Virginia Baron.[17]
Publishing history
According to holdings at the Library of Congress, the magazine was published as follows:
- Monthly: January 1918 – July 1932 (suspended May–September 1926)
- Weekly: September 1932 – April 1933
- Monthly: May–August 1933
- Biweekly: August 31, 1933 – July 26, 1934
For the first five issues of the first volume (January - May 1918) its title was The New World.
The complete run of The World Tomorrow from 1918 to 1934 is available as item 23 in the Library of World Peace Studies edited by Warren F. Kuehl. [New York]: Clearwater, 1978–1982. 1242 microfiches. The Library of Congress' holding starts with vol. 1, no. 6 dated June 1918 and ends with vol. 17, no. 15 dated July 26, 1934.
See also
- Pacificism
- Fellowship of Reconciliation
- Norman Thomas
- John Nevin Sayre
- Anna Rochester
- Kirby Page
- Devere Allen
- Reinhold Niebuhr
Footnotes
- ↑ "LCCN: The World Tomorrow". Library of Congress. Retrieved July 25, 2010.
- ↑ "The World Tomorrow (Vol. V, No. 1)". Fellowship Press. January 1922. p. i.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "The Press: Faster World Tomorrow". Time. August 15, 1932. Retrieved 2009-10-06.
- ↑ Bernard K. Johnpoll, "Devere Allen (1891-1955)," in Johnpoll and Harvey Klehr (eds.), Biographical Dictionary of the American Left. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1986; pp. 2-3.
- ↑ Addison, Barbara E. (June 30, 2007). Cold War Pacifist: Devere Allen and the Postwar Peace Movement, 1946–1955. Peace and Change (Peace History Society and Peace and Justice Studies Association). pp. 391–414. Retrieved July 25, 2010.
- ↑ "Sayre, John Nevin". Penn State University's Literary and Cultural Heritage Map of Pennsylvania. Retrieved July 27, 2010.
- ↑ "John Nevin Sayre". Swarthmore College Peace Collection. Retrieved July 27, 2010.
- ↑ Saxon, Jessica (2004). "Guide to the Anna Rochester Papers (1880–1958)". Northwest Digital Archives (NWDA). Retrieved July 25, 2010.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Sicherman, Barbara (2008). Notable American Women: The Modern Period, A–Z. W. W. Norton. p. 364. Retrieved July 25, 2010.
- ↑ Gaustad, Edwin S.; Mark A. Noll (2003). A documentary history of religion in America (2 vols). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans. pp. 134–135. ISBN 0-8028-2229-0. (v. 1). ISBN 0-8028-2230-4 (v. 2). Retrieved 1 June 2010.
- ↑ "Religion: Christian Socialism". TIME. May 11, 1931. Retrieved July 28, 2010.
- ↑ Lumpkin, Grace (1995) [1932]. To Make My Bread. University of Illinois Press. pp. introduction. ISBN 0-252-06501-8.
- ↑ Chambers, Whittaker (1952). Witness. Random House. pp. 265–266. ISBN 0-89526-571-0.
- ↑ Weinstein, Allen (1978). Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case. Knopf. pp. 91, 96. ISBN 0-394-49546-2.
- ↑ Janet, Lee (1999). Comrades and Partners: The Shared Lives of Grace Hutchins and Anna Rochester. Rowman and Littlefield. p. 153. ISBN 0-8476-9620-0.
- ↑ Meier, Andrew (2008). The Lost Spy. W. W. Norton. p. 373. ISBN 0-393-06097-7.
- ↑ "The Rebel Passion: Eighty-five Years of the Fellowship of Reconciliation". Fellowship of Reconciliation. 2001. Retrieved July 27, 2010.
Further reading
- The World Tomorrow, New York. Vol. 1 (1918) (partial) | Vol. 2 (1919) | Vol. 3 (1920) | Vol. 4 (1921) | Vol. 5 (1922) | Vol. 6 (1923) | Vol. 7 (1924) | Vol. 8 (1925) | Vol. 9 (1926) | Vol. 10 (1927) | Vol. 11 (1928) | Vol. 12 (1929) | Vol. 13 (1930) | Vol. 14 (1931) | Vol. 15 (1932) | Vol. 16 (1933) | Vol. 17 (1934)