On Company Time On Company Time American Modernism in the Big Magazines by Donal Harris
It speaks of Modernism, a time after all not too distant from us; born at the end of 1890s and following decades, we will follow in this book the evolution (we can still see it) of modern magazines.
Modernism: before the arrival of this movement magazines were mainly dedicated to a niche of people: the elite. At the end of 1890s the idea of a different kind of magazine in grade to incorporate news, gossip, daily life, policy, short tales, in grade to be loved by everyone, middle-class included. A larger audience.
Close to books, in every American family it would have been possible to find a magazine for all the family.
At first, in particular short tales section, was treated by freelancers.
Tales were written by journalists or writers, as proved by Ernest Hemingway and Francis Scott Fitzgerald.
Cather started to write at 14 years and still very young she had seen published something like 520 short tales and pieces!
With the time this role of freelancers changed, because editors understood that maybe a good story-teller could be put under contract because precious. The modern magazine with all the possible differences is still the product of this American evolution of information apported by Modernism at the end of 1890s.
Which sectors and people were mainly involved?
The book treats Cather and T.S. Eliot as well although I would want to dedicate some words at W.E.B. Du Bois. The contribution given was spectacular with the magazine The Crisis. Du Bois wanted to create good magazines for black people.
The idea was to reach million of houses with this magazine; realistically just a little number of black people was reached, but it was a good idea and a change of perspective.
Black people at that time were pretty stereotyped in books, magazines and it was necessary, first of all, to change the idea that there was of Black Americans. Most of them were people of culture, they read and wrote fluently and they were happy to see a differentiation of positions thanks to this new black cultural movement innested in the Modernism. Du Bois, being an editor, saw also the negative side of the coin. Once he complained adding that: "Magazines and newspapers are festering abominations...They are a hodge-podge of lie, gossip, twaddle and caricature." Sure, Du Bois tried also to create realities that complained about the behavior of white people. He wrote: "It is not the positive propaganda of people who believe white blood divine, infallible and holy, to which I object....It is the denial of a similar of a similar right of propaganda to those who believe black blood human, lovable and inspired with new ideals for the world." For Du Bois it was also difficult to take pictures of colored people because they were scared of being stereotyped. Popular, the magazine started to register a negative trend in the 1920s when new magazines like Opportunity appeared to the horizon and when Claude Barnett founded the Associated Negro Press in Chicago in 1919. For sure The Crisis represented an iconic moment for black people. Just a personal reflection; it's a pity that, again, information, and magazines were "divided" in the USA (I would want to try to understand if they are still) as it was for the rest of the existences of black and white people; different churches, different schools, different buses, different everything; the circulation of ideas in this way was not implemented in the entire social tissue of the society but just dedicated at black ones. Maybe no one could act differently considering the social, political condition and discrimination experienced by black people in the US, just this one to me was a big limitation of freedom and a limitation of personal, cultural growth for both the parts, white and black, in the understanding of all the voices of the social tissue of the USA.
Said that, in the book the iconic history of Time, and Time Inc with James Agee and its founders. I read it with pleasure being Time the first magazine I read and the one with which I tried to learn the humble english I try to speak and write.
Ernest Hemingway has been an important and massive esponent of Modernism. Some of his most iconic books, The Old Man and the Sea for example was published in Life with an extraordinary success of audience. 5318,650 copies were sold in just 48 hours receiving an enthusiastic, great success from common readers and academic circles.
If the past decades, critics continued to write that Hemingway hadn't anymore anything to write to his audience. The Old Man and the Sea was in grade to prove the opposite. Imitated, searched, wanted, adored, the Hemingway's writing-style became iconic. Hemingway started to collaborate actively with the Esquire, publishing wagons of pieces about fishing mainly in 1930s.
The final chapter, the future of magazines.
I love the cover. It transmit a lot of serenity, happiness, relaxation.
Highly recommended.
I thank Columbia University Press for the physical copy of this book.
Anna Maria Polidori
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