Time, Inc.

Life 11/23/36 --->

Life 11/21/05

March 3, 1923 - 1st issue of Time magazine - 32 pp.

• by H. Luce & B. Hadden in 39th St. brewery
  
• $86,000 startup cost from Yale grads - Harkness family
  
• to interpret, personalize, categorize the news
  
• factual, linear narrative = documentary
  
• omniscient, opinionated, irreverent, provocative
  
• vivid style: "tycoon", "pundit", "socialite"
  
• "backward ran sentences until reeled the mind"
  
• reader was "the gentleman from Indiana"
  
• Charles Lindbergh 1st Man of the Year 1927, Wallis Simpson 1st Woman of the Year 1936, Madam and General Chiang Kai-shek Man & Woman of the Year 1937

Feb. 1930 - 1st issue of Fortune magazine - 2lbs., 184 pp.

• to culturally broaden the American businessman
  
• new emphasis on photojournalism - E. Salomon
  

Nov. 23, 1936 - 1st issue of Life magazine - "whoop-sheet"

• high-quality picture magazine - fast drying ink
  
• emphasis on advertisers - to charm & relax masses
  
• "pass-along" readership of 8:1 - "look-through"
  
• new emphasis on own staff = Alfred Eisenstadt, Peter Stackpole, Margaret Bourke-White, T. McAvoy
  

Examples of stories published in Time-Life

• "This is a brain operation"
• FDR signs Brazilian Trade Bill Feb. 2 - McAvoy photos published Feb. 25, 1935
• FDR as "Colossus" Jan. 16, 1939: "Here, in literal fact, the camera lied. õut it did not deceive."
• Supreme Court Justice George Sutherland Oct. 25, 1937
• Surgeon-General Thomas Parran Aug. 8, 1938
• migrants on the road in Crittenden Co., Ark., by Mydans 1936
• death of Republican soldier 1937
• Picasso's Guernica 1937
• North Carolina party July 5, 1937
• women of Vasser Feb. 1, 1937
• "Clubwomen Get Lessons in Cigaret Smoking"
• "How a Wife Should Not Undress" by Peter Stackpole, who lost negatives in Oakland fire Oct. 20, 1992.
• "The Birth of a Baby" April 11, 1938
• "Speaking of Dictators" April 18, 1938
• Wendell Willkie campaign 1940

Evolution of the Company

• 1954 - 1st issue of Sports Illustrated
  
• 1964 - Hedely Donovan succeeds Luce as editor-in-chief
• 1968 - Don Hewitt models 60 Minutes on Life magazine
• 1972 - Life dies as a $.50 weekly, but 2 specials per year
  
• 1974 - 1st issue of People
  
• 1976 - Time Inc. becomes the 1st billion dolloar publishing company
• 1978 - Life reborn as a $1.50 monthly
  
• 1980 - HBO (started in 1972) and Cinemax
  
• 1989 - merger with Warner (DC comix, Mad magazine)
  

Resources

• view examples of photojournalism at the following links:
  • Pathfinder's Eisenstaedt page
  • Pulitzer Prize and winning awards for 1996 and 1997.
  • 60th anniversary exhibit Defining Images from Black Star photo agency
  • many links listed on Yahoo's photojournalism index page

Bibliography

• Swanberg, W. A. Luce and His Empire. NY: Scribners, 1972.
• Clurman, Richard M. To the End of Time: The Seduction and Conquest of a Media Empire. NY: Siman and Schuster, 1992, is an account of the 1989 merger of Time and Warners.

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