| The New Yorker Twenty-three years after Harold Ross (1892 – 1951) launched THE NEW YORKER, this profile of the man appeared on the newsstands:
"Ross is a kind of impostor. THE NEW YORKER is urbane; cactus is more urbane than Ross. THE NEW YORKER carries understatement almost to the point of inaudibility; with Ross the expletive crowds out most of the eight parts of speech....It is true that he never had a high school education; but it is also true that he is a master grammarian, and that the superb sense of style which informs THE NEW YORKER flows in part from his clean, uncompromising feeling for the English language."
Click here to read the second half of the Harold Ross profile. This portion is decorated with rejected cartoons from THE NEW YORKER...
Ross never forgot his days in Paris as the editor of THE STARS & STRIPES, click here to read an article about that period in his life. The Hobo News (Collier's Magazine, 1945)Given that THE HOBO NEWS (1934 - 1948) had an entirely unorthodox hiring policy and refused to print advertisements in order to support itself, the paper had a surprisingly long life.
As you might have imagined, THE HOBO NEWS printed poems, cartoons, pin-ups, essays and news items that were useful to that unique class of men who ride the rails and frequent flop-houses. It was established in New York City by Pat "The Roaming Dreamer" Mulkern (1903 - 1948); the paper was run by hobos, for hobos and printed proudly across the awnings of their assorted offices were the words "a little cheer to match the sorrow". Mulkern recognized that no self-respecting litigator would ever stoop to sue a newspaper with such a pathetic name, and so the paper was voluntarily in constant violation of U.S. copyright law by habitually printing the articles they most admired that had earlier appeared in COLLIER'S, THE NEW YORKER and THE SATURDAY EVENING POST.
Unlike the paper's intended readership, THE HOBO NEWS made small achievements every day, which allowed them to hire additional staff and operate in bigger up-town offices; at the peak of their performance, Mulkern and his crew were able to boast of a circulation that numbered 123,000. 'The Atlantic Monthly' in the Beginning (Literary Digest, 1897)"Forty years ago the Boston publisher, Phillips, with the assistance of that famous coterie of American writers that included Longfellow, Lowell, Emerson, Whittier, Holmes, Motley, Quincy, Parker, Cabot and Underwood launched
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY..." "It was Holmes who named the magazine, and it was he, probably, more than any other, who assured its success... The prime object of THE ATLANTIC was in the beginning and has continued to be the making of American literature, 'to hold literature above all other human interests.'" |
