 The cover of the first issue, released on April 7th, 1938. | |
| Founder | David A. Smart and Arnold Gingrich |
|---|---|
| First issue | April 7, 1938 |
| Final issue | 1939 |
| Country | United States |
Ken was a short-lived illustrated magazine first issued on April 7, 1938. It was a controversial, political, large format magazine with full page photo spreads, published every two weeks on Thursdays. [1] It contained both articles and stories.
Ken was founded in March 1938 by publisher David A. Smart and editor Arnold Gingrich, who earlier had founded Esquire . [2] [3] Initial publication was delayed due to difficulties in assembling an editorial team. Jay Allen was the first editor hired, and he began to assemble a staff drawing heavily from the political left. Smart and Gingrich found his work unsatisfactory and quickly fired Allen and most of his new men, replacing him with George Seldes; but as Seldes's left-wing views provoked unrest from potential advertisers, he was soon downgraded although not fired.
Smart and Gingrich then took more direct editorial control and launched the magazine with contributors including Seldes, Ernest Hemingway, John Spivak, Raymond Gram Swing, Manuel Komroff, critic Burton Rascoe, and sportswriter Herb Graffis. [2] Sam Berman contributed caricatures, and David Low cartoons. [4] Microbe Hunters author Paul de Kruif had been brought on as an editor, but was not able to devote full-time to the project. [2] Seldes's memoir Witness to a Century says that Seldes, de Kruif, and Hemingway were like-minded writers and editors (progressive, republican, anti-fascist) who were invited to co-edit the new magazine. [5] : 326–332 Seldes's view was that Ken failed when its owners abandoned the publication's planned editorial independence to fall in line with advertiser pressure to suppress unflattering investigative reportage such as consumer advocacy and republican critique of fascism, including the Hitler and Mussolini regimes' fight against the republic in the Spanish Civil War. Seldes quotes de Kruif and Hemingway as resigning angrily when this shift happened. [5] : 326–332
The context of the 1930s as laid out by Seldes was an American press beholden to big business through advertising revenue and the threat of loss thereof, in an era when non-communist progressivism including democratic republicanism and trade unions was being red-baited by big business favorably disposed to fascism and Nazism as supposedly necessary counters to the Bolshevik menace. [5] In short, it was an era when the nominally free press was actually beholden to rich corporate interests whose quest for sufficient anti-communism left them too cozy with right-wing authoritarianism—and who did not tolerate honesty in consumer advocacy because it was bad for sales. [5] This was an era when even reportage on something as fundamental as the link between tobacco and cancer was suppressed by publication owners because it threatened their tobacco advertising revenue, [5] and in which "the Spanish government was red-baited to death." [5]
Some of the politicians with photo layouts in the magazine included Presidents Calvin Coolidge, Grover Cleveland, Warren Harding, Franklin D. Roosevelt and as well as many prominent people in the German politics of the era. [1]
The publication was investigated in 1938 by the House Un-American Activities Committee for being Communist leaning. [6] However, its editor Arnold Gingrich denied that the publication had any political slant. Seldes maintained throughout his life that "To these people [i.e, people like the House Un-American Activities Committee under Dies and later the McCarthyites ] 'one step left of center' meant 'leftist,' and 'leftist' meant 'red,' and 'red' of course meant 'Communist'" (despite that when Seldes was cleared by McCarthy, the press did not report it). [5]
Ken ceased publication in the summer of 1939. [3] [7] Seldes stated that caving in to corporate advertiser pressure did not work, as not many ads were sold even afterward.
The first fourteen issues of Ken featured articles by Ernest Hemingway on the Spanish Civil War. In the first issue, of which his article begins on page 36, it is revealed in a caption that Hemingway was initially contracted and announced to be an editor of Ken, but had thus far taken no part in the editing of the magazine, nor in the formation of its policies. The caption goes on to reveal "If he sees eye to eye with us on Ken, we would like to have him as an editor. If not, he will remain as a contributor until he is fired or quits." [8] The disclaimer was written at Hemingway's insistence, as he felt that Ken's politics might be "liberal-phoney" [that is, pseudo-progressive rather than progressive] and did not wish to be too closely associated with it. [2]
Henry George Seldes was an American investigative journalist, foreign correspondent, editor, author, and media critic best known for the publication of the newsletter In Fact from 1940 to 1950. He was an investigative reporter of the kind known in early 20th century as a muckraker, using his journalism to fight injustice and justify reform.
Malcolm Cowley was an American writer, editor, historian, poet, and literary critic. His best known works include his first book of poetry, Blue Juniata (1929), and his memoir, Exile's Return, written as a chronicler and fellow traveller of the Lost Generation and an influential editor and talent scout at Viking Press.
A fellow traveller is a person who is intellectually sympathetic to the ideology of a political organization, and who co-operates in the organization's politics, without being a formal member. In the early history of the Soviet Union, the Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet statesman Anatoly Lunacharsky coined the term poputchik and later it was popularized by Leon Trotsky to identify the vacillating intellectual supporters of the Bolshevik government. It was the political characterisation of the Russian intelligentsiya who were philosophically sympathetic to the political, social, and economic goals of the Russian Revolution of 1917, but who did not join the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The usage of the term poputchik disappeared from political discourse in the Soviet Union during the Stalinist era, but the Western world adopted the English term fellow traveller to identify people who sympathised with the Soviets and with Communism.
Dawn is a Pakistani English-language newspaper that was launched in British India by Muhammad Ali Jinnah in 1941. It is the largest English newspaper in Pakistan, and is widely considered the country's newspaper of record. Dawn is the flagship publication of the Dawn Media Group, which also owns local radio station CityFM89 as well as the marketing and media magazine Aurora.
The National Guardian, later known as The Guardian, was a left-wing independent weekly newspaper established in 1948 in New York City. The paper was founded by James Aronson, Cedric Belfrage and John T. McManus in connection with the 1948 Presidential campaign of Henry A. Wallace under the Progressive Party banner. Although independent and often critical of all political parties, the National Guardian is thought to have been initially close to the ideological orbit of the pro-Moscow Communist Party USA, but this suspected association quickly broke down in the course of several years.
Mary Frederika "Freda" Kirchwey was an American journalist, editor, and publisher strongly committed throughout her career to liberal causes. From 1933 to 1955, she was editor of The Nation magazine.
Arnold W. Gingrich was the editor of, and, along with publisher David A. Smart and Henry L. Jackson, co-founder of Esquire magazine. Among his other projects was the political/newsmagazine Ken.
New Masses (1926–1948) was an American Marxist magazine closely associated with the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). It was the successor to both The Masses (1911–1917) and The Liberator (1918–1924). New Masses was later merged into Masses & Mainstream (1948–1963).
The League of American Writers was an association of American novelists, playwrights, poets, journalists, and literary critics launched by the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) in 1935. The group included Communist Party members, and so-called "fellow travelers" who closely followed the Communist Party's political line without being formal party members, as well as individuals sympathetic to specific policies being advocated by the organization.
Joseph Brown "Doc" Matthews Sr. (1894–1966), best known as J. B. Matthews, was an American linguist, educator, writer, and political activist. A committed pacifist, he became a self-described "fellow traveler" of the Communist Party USA in the mid-1930s, achieving national prominence as a leader of a number of the party's so-called "mass organizations". Disillusionment with communism led to anti-communist testimony before the Dies Committee in 1938. He then served as chief investigator for the House Committee on Un-American Activities, headed by Martin Dies Jr., consultant on Communist affairs for the Hearst Corporation, and by June 1953 research director for Joseph McCarthy's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the United States Senate. When Matthews published claims that the Protestant clergy comprised a base of support of the American Communist movement, he was forced to resign. This was regarded as McCarthy's first big defeat, signaling that his position was starting to weaken among his colleagues.
Red fascism is a term equating Stalinism and other variants of Marxism–Leninism with fascism. Accusations that the leaders of the Soviet Union during the Stalin era acted as "red fascists" have come from left-wing figures who identified as anarchists, left communists, social democrats and other democratic socialists, as well as liberals, and among right-wing circles both closer to and further from the centre.
Jacob Burck was a Polish-born Jewish-American painter, sculptor, and award-winning editorial cartoonist. Active in the Communist movement from 1926 as a political cartoonist and muralist, Burck quit the Communist Party after a visit to the Soviet Union in 1936, deeply offended by political demands there to manipulate his work.
The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having fascist and communist ties. It became a standing (permanent) committee in 1946, and from 1969 onwards it was known as the House Committee on Internal Security. When the House abolished the committee in 1975, its functions were transferred to the House Judiciary Committee.
George Edward Deatherage was an American political agitator and a promoter of nationalism. A native of Minnesota and an engineer by training, he authored several books on construction. He is best remembered for his political activities. Deatherage was the founder of a later version of the Knights of the White Camellia and the American Nationalist Confederation. He also wrote speeches for General George Van Horn Moseley, a prominent American supporter of the Nazis. In the 1930s, Deatherage made plans to launch a fascist uprising to overthrow the federal government. He described fascism as a "patriotic revolt such as the revolt of the White Russians against Jewocracy." He said, "I believe it will take military action to get the gang out," and proposed persuading officers in the U.S. Army reserve to take key positions in a fascist army. He testified before the Dies Committee in 1939.
Joseph Paul Lash was an American radical political activist, journalist, and writer. A close friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, Lash won both the Pulitzer Prize for Biography and the National Book Award in Biography for Eleanor and Franklin (1971), the first of two volumes he wrote about the former First Lady.
Charles Harris Garrigues was an American writer and journalist. He was a general-assignment reporter in Los Angeles, California, in the 1920s, a grand jury investigator and political activist in the 1930s, a newspaper copy editor in the 1940s and a jazz critic in the 1950s. His nickname was Brick, for his red hair.
During the ten decades since its establishment in 1919, the Communist Party USA produced or inspired a vast array of newspapers and magazines in the English language.
During the nine decades since its establishment in 1919, the Communist Party USA produced or inspired a vast array of newspapers and magazines in at least 25 different languages. This list of the Non-English press of the Communist Party USA provides basic information on each title, along with links to pages dealing with specific publications in greater depth.
L'Ora was a Sicilian daily newspaper published in Palermo. The paper was founded in 1900 and stopped being published in 1992. In the 1950s–1980s the paper was known for its investigative reporting about the Sicilian Mafia.
Counterattack was a weekly subscription-based newsletter published from 1947 to 1955, with an emphasis on anti-communist content and organizing boycotts or other actions against those who were accused of communist associations or sympathies. The mimeographed newsletter was published by American Business Consultants, a "private, independent organization" started by three former agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Counterattack went into decline after a series of lawsuits by people who were named in the publication.
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