1936 : First issue of Life is published
On November 23, 1936, the first issue of the pictorial magazine Life
is published, featuring a cover photo of the Fort Peck Dam by Margaret
Bourke-White.
Life actually had its start earlier in the 20th century as a different
kind of magazine: a weekly humor publication, not unlike today's The
New Yorker in its use of tart cartoons, humorous pieces and cultural
reporting. When the original Life folded during the Great Depression,
the influential American publisher Henry Luce bought the name and
re-launched the magazine as a picture-based periodical on this day in
1936. By this time, Luce had already enjoyed great success as the
publisher of Time, a weekly news magazine.
From his high school days, Luce was a newsman, serving with his friend
Briton Hadden as managing editors of their school newspaper. This
partnership continued through their college years at Yale University,
where they acted as chairmen and managing editors of the Yale Daily
News, as well as after college, when Luce joined Hadden at The
Baltimore News in 1921. It was during this time that Luce and Hadden
came up with the idea for Time. When it launched in 1923, it was with
the intention of delivering the world's news through the eyes of the
people who made it.
Whereas the original mission of Time was to tell the news, the mission
of Life was to show it. In the words of Luce himself, the magazine was
meant to provide a way for the American people "to see life; to see
the world; to eyewitness great events ... to see things thousands of
miles away ... to see and be amazed; to see and be instructed ... to
see, and to show ..." Luce set the tone of the magazine with Margaret
Bourke-White's stunning cover photograph of the Fort Peck Dam, which
has since become an icon of the 1930s and the great public works
completed under President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.
Life was an overwhelming success in its first year of publication.
Almost overnight, it changed the way people looked at the world by
changing the way people could look at the world. Its flourish of
images painted vivid pictures in the public mind, capturing the
personal and the public, and putting it on display for the world to
take in. At its peak, Life had a circulation of over 8 million and it
exerted considerable influence on American life in the beginning and
middle of the 20th century.
With picture-heavy content as the driving force behind its
popularity,the magazine suffered as television became society's
predominant means of communication. Life ceased running as a weekly
publication in 1972, when it began losing audience and advertising
dollars to television. In 2004, however, it resumed weekly publication
as a supplement to U.S. newspapers. At its re-launch, its combined
circulation was once again in the millions.
history.com/tdih.do
General Interest
1936 : First issue of Life is published
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihVideoCategory&id=52280
1499 : Flemish pretender executed in London
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5542
1859 : Billy the Kid born
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=7090
1876 : "Boss" Tweed delivered to authorities
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5543
1979 : IRA member sentenced for Mountbatten's assassination
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5544
###########################################
On November 23, 1936, the first issue of the pictorial magazine Life
is published, featuring a cover photo of the Fort Peck Dam by Margaret
Bourke-White.
Life actually had its start earlier in the 20th century as a different
kind of magazine: a weekly humor publication, not unlike today's The
New Yorker in its use of tart cartoons, humorous pieces and cultural
reporting. When the original Life folded during the Great Depression,
the influential American publisher Henry Luce bought the name and
re-launched the magazine as a picture-based periodical on this day in
1936. By this time, Luce had already enjoyed great success as the
publisher of Time, a weekly news magazine.
From his high school days, Luce was a newsman, serving with his friend
Briton Hadden as managing editors of their school newspaper. This
partnership continued through their college years at Yale University,
where they acted as chairmen and managing editors of the Yale Daily
News, as well as after college, when Luce joined Hadden at The
Baltimore News in 1921. It was during this time that Luce and Hadden
came up with the idea for Time. When it launched in 1923, it was with
the intention of delivering the world's news through the eyes of the
people who made it.
Whereas the original mission of Time was to tell the news, the mission
of Life was to show it. In the words of Luce himself, the magazine was
meant to provide a way for the American people "to see life; to see
the world; to eyewitness great events ... to see things thousands of
miles away ... to see and be amazed; to see and be instructed ... to
see, and to show ..." Luce set the tone of the magazine with Margaret
Bourke-White's stunning cover photograph of the Fort Peck Dam, which
has since become an icon of the 1930s and the great public works
completed under President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.
Life was an overwhelming success in its first year of publication.
Almost overnight, it changed the way people looked at the world by
changing the way people could look at the world. Its flourish of
images painted vivid pictures in the public mind, capturing the
personal and the public, and putting it on display for the world to
take in. At its peak, Life had a circulation of over 8 million and it
exerted considerable influence on American life in the beginning and
middle of the 20th century.
With picture-heavy content as the driving force behind its
popularity,the magazine suffered as television became society's
predominant means of communication. Life ceased running as a weekly
publication in 1972, when it began losing audience and advertising
dollars to television. In 2004, however, it resumed weekly publication
as a supplement to U.S. newspapers. At its re-launch, its combined
circulation was once again in the millions.
history.com/tdih.do
General Interest
1936 : First issue of Life is published
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihVideoCategory&id=52280
1499 : Flemish pretender executed in London
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5542
1859 : Billy the Kid born
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=7090
1876 : "Boss" Tweed delivered to authorities
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5543
1979 : IRA member sentenced for Mountbatten's assassination
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5544
###########################################
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