Dictionary Of Literary Biography Volume 91: American Magazine Journalists, 1900-1960 First Series

By the beginning of the 20th-century, mass production had converted the economics of the nation from scarcity to abundance. National advertising gained importance, and the only available medium was the magazine--not the old-style literary magazine, but a new manifestation. Publishers came to see subscibers less as readers and more as consumers as magazines grew to become a part of the marketing process. This evolution — orchestrated and implemented by the 37 writers, editors and publishers profiled in this DLB volume — was also sparked by increasing affluence, higher education levels, and increasing amounts of leisure time. By the 1960s the transformation was complete; magazines, like almost every other facet of American life, were operated in a more impersonal corporate manner.

37 entries include: Margaret Anderson, William F. Bigelow, Cyrus H.K. Curtis, Gilbert H. Grosvenor, Joseph Palmer Knapp, Henry R. Luce, Conde Nast, Walter Hines Page, A. Philip Randolph, Ellery Sedgwick, Oswald Garrison Villard.

This volume of the Dictionary of Literary Biography is the second devoted to American magazine journalists in the period from 1900-1960. (The first was volume 91, published in 1990.) According to the editor, "the shape of the magazine industry in this period was such that an additional volume was required to do justice to its leading editorial figures." In this volume, 36 publishers, editors, and journalists are profiled.

The introduction provides information on the scope of the volume, as well as the evolution of the magazine during the period. The bulk of the book consists of lengthy profiles of journalists, providing information on major professional positions held, a list of their publications, a biographical profile, biographies written about them, references used in compiling the sketch, and an indication of where the subject's papers are housed. The profiles, which are generally engaging and well written, trace the subjects' lives from childhood through the major points in their journalism careers. Of the journalists profiled, only one (Margaret Cousins) is a woman. Cousins is one of eight journalists covered who were alive at the time of this volume's publication. Some (most notably William F. Buckley, Hugh Hefner, and John Johnson) are still active. At least two of the journalists, Theodore Dreiser and H. L. Mencken, have been profiled in other volumes in this series. The profiles are nicely illustrated with photos of the subject and/or of the magazines they were associated with.

An appendix provides a list of magazine editorial statements from the period covered, taken, for the most part, from the magazine's first issue. This is followed by a list of contributors, a checklist of further readings, and a cumulative index to the 137 volumes in the series. No information is provided about the authors of the profiles other than their academic affiliation.

In compiling this volume, the editor has placed the emphasis on quality, not quantity. Such important figures in the field as Harold Ross and the Wallaces (the founders of Reader's Digest) are given extensive coverage. This useful reference tool is recommended for purchase by university libraries building comprehensive collections in mass communications; public libraries will want to consider purchase, too.