From the colonial era to the onset of the Civil War, Magazines and the Making of America looks at how magazines and the individuals, organizations, and circumstances they connected ushered America into the modern age. How did a magazine industry emerge in the United States, where there were once only amateur authors, clumsy technologies for production and distribution, and sparse reader demand? What legitimated magazines as they competed with other media, such as newspapers, books, and letters? And what role did magazines play in the integration or division of American society? From their first appearance in 1741, magazines brought together like-minded people, wherever they were located and whatever interests they shared. As America became socially differentiated, magazines engaged and empowered diverse communities of faith, purpose, and practice. Religious groups could distinguish themselves from others and demarcate their identities. Social-reform movements could energize activists across the country to push for change. People in specialized occupations could meet and learn from one another to improve their practices. Magazines built translocal communities—collections of people with common interests who were geographically dispersed and could not easily meet face-to-face. By supporting communities that crossed various axes of social structure, magazines also fostered pluralistic integration. Looking at the important role that magazines had in mediating and sustaining critical debates and diverse groups of people, Magazines and the Making of America considers how these print publications helped construct a distinctly American society.

In this entertaining anthology, editors, writers, art directors, and publishers from such magazines as Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, The New Republic, Elle, and Harper's draw on their varied, colorful experiences to explore a range of issues concerning their profession. Combining anecdotes with expert analysis, these leading industry insiders speak on writing and editing articles, developing great talent, effectively incorporating art and design, and the critical relationship between advertising dollars and content. They emphasize the importance of fact checking and copyediting; share insight into managing the interests (and potential conflicts) of various departments; explain how to parlay an entry-level position into a masthead title; and weigh the increasing influence of business interests on editorial decisions. In addition to providing a rare, behind-the-scenes look at the making of successful and influential magazines, these contributors address the future of magazines in a digital environment and the ongoing importance of magazine journalism. Full of intimate reflections and surprising revelations, The Art of Making Magazines is both a how-to and a how-to-be guide for editors, journalists, students, and anyone hoping for a rare peek between the lines of their favorite magazines. The chapters are based on talks delivered as part of the George Delacorte Lecture Series at the Columbia School of Journalism. Essays include: "Talking About Writing for Magazines (Which One Shouldn't Do)" by John Gregory Dunne; "Magazine Editing Then and Now" by Ruth Reichl; "How to Become the Editor in Chief of Your Favorite Women's Magazine" by Roberta Myers; "Editing a Thought-Leader Magazine" by Michael Kelly; "Fact-Checking at The New Yorker" by Peter Canby; "A Magazine Needs Copyeditors Because...." by Barbara Walraff; "How to Talk to the Art Director" by Chris Dixon; "Three Weddings and a Funeral" by Tina Brown; "The Simpler the Idea, the Better" by Peter W. Kaplan; "The Publisher's Role: Crusading Defender of the First Amendment or Advertising Salesman?" by John R. MacArthur; "Editing Books Versus Editing Magazines" by Robert Gottlieb; and "The Reader Is King" by Felix Dennis

"The five volumes of A History of American Magazines constitute a unique cultural history of America, viewed through the pages and pictures of her periodicals from the publication of the first monthly magazine in 1741 through the golden age of magazines in the twentieth century"--Page 4 of cover.

Magazines and the Making of Mass Culture in Japan provides a detailed yet approachable analysis of the mechanisms central to the birth of mass culture in Japan by tracing the creation, production, and circulation of two critically important family magazines: Kingu (King) and Ie no hikari (Light of the Home). These magazines served to embed new instruments of mass communication and socialization within Japanese society and created mechanisms to facilitate the dissemination of hegemonic forms of discourse in the first half of the twentieth century. The amazing success of Kingu and Ie no hikari during the 1920s and 1930s not only established and normalized participation in a Japanese mass national audience - a community which had previously not existed - but also facilitated the rise of Japanese mass consumer culture in the postwar years. Amy Bliss Marshall argues that the postwar mass national consumer in Japan is foreshadowed by the mass national audience created by family magazines of the interwar era. This book narrates the development of such publications, one explicitly capitalist and one outwardly agrarian, based on missions with an overarching desire to create a mass audience. Magazines and the Making of Mass Culture in Japan highlights the importance of the seemingly innocuous acts of mass leisure consumption of magazines and the goods advertised therein, aiding our understanding of the creation and direction of a new form of social participation and understanding - an essential part of not only the culture but also the politics of the interwar period.

For more than fifty years, Walter Bernard and Milton Glaser have revolutionized the look of magazine journalism. In Mag Men, Bernard and Glaser recount their storied careers, offering insiders’ perspective on some of the most iconic design work of the twentieth century. The authors look back on and analyze some of their most important and compelling projects, from the creation of New York magazine to redesigns of such publications as Time, Fortune, Paris Match, and The Nation, explaining how their designs complemented a story and shaped the visual identity of a magazine. Richly illustrated with the covers and interiors that defined their careers, Mag Men is bursting with vivid examples of Bernard and Glaser’s work, designed to encapsulate their distinctive approach to visual storytelling and capture the major events and trends of the past half century. Highlighting the importance of collaboration in magazine journalism, Bernard and Glaser detail their relationships with a variety of writers, editors, and artists, including Nora Ephron, Tom Wolfe, Gail Sheehy, David Levine, Seymour Chwast, Katherine Graham, Clay Felker, and Katrina vanden Heuvel. The book features a foreword by Gloria Steinem, who reflects on her work in magazines and her collaborations with Bernard and Glaser. At a time when uncertainty continues to cloud the future of print journalism, Mag Men offers not only a personal history from two of its most innovative figures but also a reminder and celebration of the visual impact and sense of style that only magazines can offer.