The Saturday Evening Post is an American magazine, currently published six times a year. It was published weekly from 1897 until 1963, and then every other week until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely circulated and influential magazines among the American middle class, with fiction, non-fiction, cartoons and features that reached two million homes every week.
In the 1960s, the magazine's readership began to decline. In 1969, The Saturday Evening Post folded for two years before being revived as a quarterly publication with an emphasis on medical articles in 1971.
As of the late 2000s, The Saturday Evening Post is published six times a year by the Saturday Evening Post Society, which purchased the magazine in 1982. The magazine was redesigned in 2013.[3]
History
19th century
Cover of the January 19, 1924, issue
The Saturday Evening Post was first published in 1821[2] in the same printing shop at 53 Market Street in Philadelphia, where the Benjamin Franklin-founded Pennsylvania Gazette was published in the 18th century.[4] While the Gazette ceased publication in 1800, ten years after Franklin's death, the Post links its history to the original magazine.[4][5]
The Saturday Evening Post published current event articles, editorials, human interest pieces, humor, illustrations, a letter column, poetry with contributions submitted by readers, single-panel gag cartoons, including Hazel by Ted Key, and stories by leading writers of the time. It was known for commissioning lavish illustrations and original works of fiction. Illustrations were featured on the cover and embedded in stories and advertising. Some Post illustrations continue to be reproduced as posters or prints, especially those by Norman Rockwell.[citation needed]
20th century
In 1929, at the beginning of the Mexican Repatriation, The Saturday Evening Post ran a series on the racial inferiority of Mexicans.[8]
The Post readership began to decline in the late 1950s and 1960s. In general, the decline of general interest magazines was blamed on television, which competed for advertisers and readers' attention. The Post had problems retaining readers: the public's taste in fiction was changing, and the Post's conservative politics and values appealed to a declining number of people.[citation needed] Content by popular writers became harder to obtain. Prominent authors drifted away to newer magazines offering more money and status. As a result, the Post published more articles on current events and cut costs by replacing illustrations with photographs for covers and advertisements.[citation needed]
In 1967, The magazine's publisher, Curtis Publishing Company, lost a landmark defamation suit, Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts388 U.S. 130 (1967),[10] resulting from an article, and was ordered to pay $3,060,000 in damages to the plaintiff. The Post article implied that footballcoachesPaul "Bear" Bryant and Wally Butts conspired to fix a game between the University of Alabama and the University of Georgia. Both coaches sued Curtis Publishing Co. for defamation, each initially asking for $10million. Bryant eventually settled for $300,000 while Butts' case went to the Supreme Court, which held that libel damages may be recoverable (in this instance against a news organization) when the injured party is a non-public official, if the plaintiff can prove that the defendant was guilty of a reckless lack of professional standards when examining allegations for reasonable credibility. (Butts was eventually awarded $460,000.)[citation needed]
William Emerson was promoted to editor-in-chief in 1965 and remained in the position until the magazine's demise in 1969.[11]
In 1968, Martin Ackerman, a specialist in troubled firms, became president of Curtis after lending it $5M. With the magazine still in dire financial straits, Ackerman announced that Curtis would reduce printing costs by cancelling the subscriptions of roughly half of its readers. Those who lost their subscriptions were offered a free transfer to a subscription to Life magazine; Life publisher Time Inc. paid Curtis $5M for the exchange, easing the company's mounting debts.[12] The move was also widely seen as an opportunity for Curtis to abandon older and more rural readers, who were less valuable to the Post's advertisers.[13] Columnist Art Buchwald lampooned the decision, suggesting that "if the Saturday Evening Post considered you a deadbeat, you didn't have much choice but to either pretend you were still getting the magazine and live a lie, or move out of the neighborhood before anyone found out."[14][15]
These last-ditch efforts failed to save the magazine, and Curtis announced in January 1969 that the February 8 issue would be the magazine's last. Ackerman stated that the magazine had lost $5M in 1968 and would lose a projected $3M in 1969.[16] In a meeting with employees after the magazine's closure had been announced, Emerson thanked the staff for their professional work and promised "to stay here and see that everyone finds a job".[17]
At a March 1969 post-mortem on the magazine's closing, Emerson stated that The Post "was a damn good vehicle for advertising" with competitive renewal rates and readership reports and expressed what The New York Times called "understandable bitterness" in wishing "that all the one-eyed critics will lose their other eye".[18]Otto Friedrich, the magazine's last managing editor, blamed the death of The Post on Curtis. In his Decline and Fall (Harper & Row, 1970), an account of the magazine's final years (1962–69), he argued that corporate management was unimaginative and incompetent. Friedrich acknowledges that The Post faced challenges while the tastes of American readers changed over the course of the 1960s, but he insisted that the magazine maintained a standard of good quality and was appreciated by readers.[citation needed]
In 1970, control of the debilitated Curtis Publishing Company was acquired from the estate of Cyrus Curtis by Indianapolis industrialist Beurt SerVaas.[19] SerVaas relaunched the Post the following year on a quarterly basis as a kind of nostalgia magazine.[19]
In early 1982, ownership of the Post was transferred to the Benjamin Franklin Literary and Medical Society, founded in 1976 by the Post's then-editor, Corena "Cory" SerVaas[20] (wife of Beurt SerVaas).[21] The magazine's core focus was now health and medicine; indeed, the magazine's website originally noted that the "credibility of The Saturday Evening Post has made it a valuable asset for reaching medical consumers and for helping medical researchers obtain family histories. In the magazine, national health surveys are taken to further current research on topics such as cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, ulcerative colitis, spina bifida, and bipolar disorder."[22] Ownership of the magazine was later transferred to the Saturday Evening Post Society; SerVaas headed both organizations. The range of topics covered in the magazine's articles is now wide, suitable for a general readership.[citation needed]
By 1991, Curtis Publishing Company had been renamed Curtis International, a subsidiary of SerVaas Inc., and had become an importer of audiovisual equipment.[23] Today the Post is published six times a year by the Saturday Evening Post Society, which claims 501(c)(3)non-profit organization status.[citation needed]
21st century
With the January/February 2013 issue, the Post launched a major makeover of the publication, including a new cover design and efforts to increase the magazine's profile, in response to a general public misbelief that it was no longer in existence.[24] The magazine's new logo is an update of a logo it had used beginning in 1942.[25] As of October 2018, the complete archive of the magazine is available online.[26]
In 1916, Saturday Evening Post editor George Horace Lorimer discovered Norman Rockwell, then an unknown 22-year-old New York City artist. Lorimer promptly purchased two illustrations from Rockwell, using them as covers, and commissioned three more drawings. Rockwell's illustrations of the American family and rural life of a bygone era became icons. During his 50-year career with the Post, Rockwell painted more than 300 covers.[citation needed]
The Post also employed Nebraska artist John Philip Falter, who became known as "a painter of Americana with an accent of the Middle West," who "brought out some of the homeliness and humor of Middle Western town life and home life." He produced 120 covers for the Post between 1943 and 1968, ceasing only when the magazine began displaying photographs on its covers. [citation needed]
Each issue featured several original short stories and often included an installment of a serial appearing in successive issues. Most of the fiction was written for mainstream tastes by popular writers, but some literary writers were featured. The opening pages of stories featured paintings by the leading magazine illustrators.[citation needed]
Emblematic of the Post's fiction was author Clarence Budington Kelland, who first appeared in 1916–17 with stories of homespun heroes, "Efficiency Edgar" and "Scattergood Baines". Kelland was a steady presence from 1922 until 1961.[citation needed]
For many years William Hazlett Upson contributed a very popular series of short stories about the escapades of Earthworm Tractors salesman Alexander Botts.[30]
Publication in the Post launched careers and helped established artists and writers stay afloat. P. G. Wodehouse said "the wolf was always at the door" until the Post gave him his "first break" in 1915 by serializing Something New.[31]
After Lorimer died, Garrett became editorial writer-in-chief and criticized the Roosevelt administration's support of the United Kingdom and efforts to prepare to enter World War II, and allegedly showed some support for Adolf Hitler in some of his editorials. Garrett's positions aroused controversy and may have cost the Post readers and advertisers in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor and the Holocaust.[citation needed]
Norman Percevel Rockwell was an American painter and illustrator. His works have a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of the country's culture. Rockwell is most famous for the cover illustrations of everyday life he created for The Saturday Evening Post magazine over nearly five decades. Among the best-known of Rockwell's works are the Willie Gillis series, Rosie the Riveter, The Problem We All Live With, Saying Grace, and the Four Freedoms series. He is also noted for his 64-year relationship with the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), during which he produced covers for their publication Boys' Life, calendars, and other illustrations. These works include popular images that reflect the Scout Oath and Scout Law such as The Scoutmaster, A Scout Is Reverent, and A Guiding Hand.
Kenneth Lewis Roberts was an American writer of historical novels. He worked first as a journalist, becoming nationally known for his work with the Saturday Evening Post from 1919 to 1928, and then as a popular novelist. Born in Kennebunk, Maine, Roberts specialized in regionalist historical fiction, often writing about his native state and its terrain and also about other upper New England states and scenes. For example, the main characters in Arundel and Rabble in Arms are from Kennebunkport, the main character in Northwest Passage is from Kittery, Maine and has friends in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and the main character in Oliver Wiswell is from Milton, Massachusetts.
Ladies' Home Journal was an American magazine that ran until 2016 and was last published by the Meredith Corporation. It was first published on February 16, 1883, and eventually became one of the leading women's magazines of the 20th century in the United States. In 1891, it was published in Philadelphia by the Curtis Publishing Company. In 1903, it was the first American magazine to reach one million subscribers.
Joseph Christian Leyendecker was one of the most prominent and financially successful freelance commercial artists in the U.S. He was active between 1895 and 1951 producing drawings and paintings for hundreds of posters, books, advertisements, and magazine covers and stories. He is best known for his 80 covers for Collier's Weekly, 322 covers for The Saturday Evening Post, and advertising illustrations for B. Kuppenheimer men's clothing and Arrow brand shirts and detachable collars. He was one of the few known gay artists working in the early-twentieth century U.S.
The Curtis Publishing Company, founded in 1891 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, became one of the largest and most influential publishers in the United States during the early 20th century. The company's publications included the Ladies' Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post, The American Home, Holiday, Jack & Jill, and Country Gentleman.
Ben Ames Williams was an American novelist and writer of short stories; he wrote hundreds of short stories and over 30 novels. Among his novels are Come Spring (1940), Leave Her to Heaven (1944) House Divided (1947), and The Unconquered (1953). He was published in many magazines, but the majority of his stories appeared in The Saturday Evening Post.
John Philip Falter was an American artist best known for his many cover paintings for The Saturday Evening Post.
The National Museum of American Illustration (NMAI), founded in 1998, is the first national museum to be devoted exclusively to American illustration artwork. The NMAI is located in the Vernon Court mansion on Bellevue Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island. The museum's collection contains over 2,000 original works by noted American illustrators such as Norman Rockwell, Maxfield Parrish, J. C. Leyendecker, N.C. Wyeth, and others.
George Horace Lorimer was an American journalist, editor, author and publisher who worked as the editor of The Saturday Evening Post from 1899 to 1936. During his time as editor, circulation rose from several thousand to more than one million. He published the works of some of the greatest American writers and hired the then unknown illustrator Norman Rockwell to create cover artwork. He became president of the Curtis Publishing Company in 1932 and served until 1936.
The Public Ledger was a daily newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, published from March 25, 1836, to January 1942. Its motto was "Virtue, Liberty, and Independence". It was Philadelphia's most widely-circulated newspaper for a period, but its circulation began declining in the mid-1930s. The newspaper also operated a syndicate, the Ledger Syndicate, from 1915 until 1946.
Mead Schaeffer was an American illustrator active from the early to middle twentieth century.
Ellen Bernard Thompson Pyle was an American illustrator best known for the 40 covers she created for The Saturday Evening Post in the 1920s and 1930s under the guidance of Post editor-in-chief, George Horace Lorimer. She studied with Howard Pyle and later married Pyle's brother Walter.
William Austin "Bill" Emerson Jr. was an American journalist who covered the Civil Rights Movement as Newsweek's first bureau chief assigned to cover the Southern United States and was later editor in chief of The Saturday Evening Post.
Earl Mayan was an American illustrator whose early career spanned the era of pulp magazines to the post World War II years alongside Norman Rockwell at The Saturday Evening Post. From 1954 to 1961, he painted ten Saturday Evening Post covers and illustrated many of the stories that appeared as inside the magazine.
Constantin Alajálov was an Armenian-American painter and illustrator. He was born in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, and immigrated to New York City in 1923, becoming a US citizen in 1928. Many of his illustrations were covers for such magazines as The New Yorker, The Saturday Evening Post, and Fortune. He also illustrated many books, including the first edition of George Gershwin's Song Book. His works are in New York's Museum of Modern Art and the Brooklyn Museum. He died in Amenia, New York.
The New Rochelle artist colony was a community of artists, actors, musicians, playwrights and writers who settled in the city of New Rochelle, New York, during the early twentieth century. By the 1920s, New Rochelle had more artists per capita than almost any city in the United States, and newspaper headlines were referring to the community as "Greenwich Village without the Greenwich."
Sarah Stilwell Weber was an American illustrator who studied at Drexel Institute under Howard Pyle. She illustrated books and national magazines, like The Saturday Evening Post, Vogue, and The Century Magazine.
Charles Leslie Thrasher was an American illustrator best known for his magazine covers for Liberty magazine and the Saturday Evening Post.
Dr. Beurt Richard SerVaas was an American businessman, publisher, and politician. He served as a US Naval Officer in China during World War II, after being recruited by the Office of Strategic Services. He later served on the Indianapolis City-County Council from 1961 to 2002, the last 27 years of which as the council president.
Cory Synhorst SerVaas was an American editor, inventor, and doctor. She edited the Lionel train magazine and The Saturday Evening Post. Her work included hosting a weekly health show, advocating for health issues, translating medical terminology, and using mobile health screeners.
↑ "Tractor Actor Wins Oscar". Caterpillar Inc. Archived from the original on August 1, 2018. Retrieved September 4, 2020. Upson wrote more than 100 stories featuring his exploits with the Earthworm Tractor Company for the Saturday Evening Post from 1927-1974.
Cohn, Jan. Creating America: George Horace Lorimer and the Saturday Evening Post (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1990)
Damon-Moore, Helen. Magazines for the millions: Gender and commerce in the Ladies' Home Journal and the Saturday Evening Post, 1880–1910 (SUNY Press, 1994)
Hall, Roger I. "A system pathology of an organization: the rise and fall of the old Saturday Evening Post." Administrative science quarterly (1976): 185–211. in JSTOR
Tebbel, John William. George Horace Lorimer and the Saturday Evening Post (1948)
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