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This week we are going down a different path of nostalgia. If your household was like mine there was plenty of reading material. My parents were readers and we had newspapers, magazines and the ever present set of encyclopedias.Jo-Ann Boepple: A look at LIFE
Published 2:10pm Wednesday, October 14, 2009But the magazines most remembered were the bathroom reader, the Readers Digest, the National Geographic, and my favorites, the Saturday Evening Post, Life, Look and Colliers.
These were for the most part weekly magazines. They have been replaced with the more current Newsweek, Time and World News Report. But let’s take a look at LIFE and LOOK.
Life Magazine had an earlier version than the one we recall. The photo magazine that we knew was started in 1936 by Henry Luce. He was convinced that photos could tell a story just as well as text. The first such issue appeared on the newsstands in the midst of the Great Depression. Ignoring the events surrounding Americans, the issue featured the Fort Peck Dam in Montana photographed by Margaret Bourke-White.
The magazine was printed on heavy coated paper with 50 pages of pictures and cost only a dime. In four months more than a million copies were printed. Life Magazine was always recognizable because of its cover. The LIFE logo was in the bright red upper left hand corner with LIFE printed in white letters. Across the bottom was a red strip with the date and featured articles. The only time that the logo was left off the cover was once in 1937 when a picture of a rooster would have its comb lost if the logotype was used as usual.
As the U. S. entered the war in 1941 Life changed and employed a number of war correspondents. War photographer Robert Capa was among first wave of the D-Day Invasion of Normandy, France on June 6, 1944. During that war each week pictures brought the war to American homes.
After the war the magazine published memorable images of events in the United States and the World. In the early 1950s there were popular science serials. By then the price had rose to 25 cents but in 1959 due to the rise in television viewership and even after lowering the price to 19 cents, the magazine was losing interest.
One of the most famous and often reproduced covers was Alfred Eisendtaedt’s photograph of a nurse in a sailor’s arms as they celebrated VJ Day in New York City, taken on August 27, 1945.
In the 1960s featured were pictorial stories of movie stars. Jean Harlow was the first actress on the cover followed by such stars as Grace Kelley, Clark Gable, Elizabeth Taylor and scores of others. President John F. Kennedy, the war in Vietnam, and the moon landing were also featured. Still circulation decreased and in December 8, 1972, the weekly magazine shut down.
In 1978, Life was reborn as a monthly magazine and endured until the year 2000 when once again it was discontinued.
It reappeared in 2004 as a free supplement to newspapers. It was in competition with Parade and USA Weekend. This lasted only three years and on March 26, 2007, we saw the last of Life Magazine.
Next week a look at the competition, LOOK magazine.
Jo-Ann Boepple provides Reflections of the Past, a weekly feature from the Edwardsburg Museum Group and Historical Collection. She is a third generation Edwardsburg resident.
