The History of

Magazines.
The beginning of print magazines:
First publication, which could be called a magazine, was the German Erbauliche Monaths
Unterredungen, released in the year 1663. It was a literary and philosophical edition and after it
was launched several periodicals with very similar topics were published, and were intended
for an intellectual audience.

Thematic scope was very narrow, and it was mainly written by one author. A publication
similar to today’s magazines (various themes and several authors) appeared in the year 1672,
when French author Jean Donneau de Vize created Le Mercure Galant. It combines topics from
court events, theater and literature, and this magazine concept was copied throughout
Europe. The first women’s magazine, Ladie’s Mercury, was launched in London in the year
1693. Of course, these publications in their beginnings were called periodicals.
Where The name came from?
The credit for this would go to the Arabs. Word “magazine” appeared in the year 1731. The
name magazine comes from the Arabic word which means the warehouse. It was used for
describing the place which deposits large quantity of various goods, while the analogy used to
describe a book that contained many useful information for travelers and sailors.
The very first ad pages!
In the mid 19th century, magazine readers were not only the rich ones but the middle class as well. This
was beginning for the first family magazines, such as, ‘Dickens Household Words’. During the 19th century,
increasing attempts were made to cut the price of the magazines. At this time the first ads appeared, but
not much because the ads were loaded with special tax, all up to 1853.

After the repeal of the tax, number of ads did not increase since many publishers avoided this type of
income (Reader's Digest magazine did not publish ads until 1955).However, In the late 19th century with
the invention of the rotary press, the number of printed copies increased and the price of the issue was
reduced and thus we entered the century, that marked the development of the magazines as one of the
world’s leading media.

With technological progress, increased circulation, and increasing use of images, magazines were becoming
increasingly attractive to advertisers. The first advertising agency was established in 1890 and from that
point on advertising started to flourish.
Rise of Magazines
In the early 20th century, one of the most important icons in the world of publishing, William
Randolph Hearst appeared. As the owner of several newspapers across America, he engaged
in a merciless battle for readers with his mentor, Joseph Pulitzer. During the Cuban War for
Independence, Hearst and Pulitzer published in their newspapers images of tortured and
starving Cuban troops. At this moment arises the term yellow journalism, which marks the
sensationalist approach to the presentation of events.

Hearst expanded his empire to magazine publishing starting with the famous Good
Housekeeping, National Geographic and Harper’s Bazaar.
Besides Hearst’s magazines, some other important publications appear such as Conde Nast’s
Vogue, Vanity Fair and news magazine Time, whose starter Henry Luce is still considered the
most influential publisher in history.Although Luce launched Time, he was not a visionary and
he did not guide the magazine. He actually stole the idea for the first political weekly from his
colleague at Yale, Britton Hadden.

Hadden was responsible for conceiving the concept of the political news magazine, and he as
the editor of the Time, formed personality of the magazine, gained loyal readers, and brought
the financial profit to the company. The same company issued several well-known magazines
such as Life, Sports Illustrated and Money.
Full color print and photo-journalism
Hadden has influenced popular culture in such a peculiar way that he changed the patterns of
thinking and behavior of people in the 20th century. Unfortunately, he died very young, aged
30, and his partner Henry Luce continued development of Time magazine, and become the
biggest media mogul in the next few decades.

Parallel with the development of Time, Fortune magazine was published, which originated from
Time business pages. Fortune was considered the best and most influential American
magazine. Besides heavily influenced by the world of business, Fortune is known for being the
first high-quality printed magazine, with pages in full color.

Fortune also invented photo-journalism, something that made Life magazine famous few years
later. However, due to increasing costs of printing the Fortune started to lose money, and in
the 1948 it redesigned, both in graphics and in journalistic terms, and became an ordinary
business magazine.
..And she changed the way women think!
At that time in post WWII Europe, in France, one person launched a magazine that greatly
changed the way women think, speak, and perceive themselves. It was Helene Gordon
Lazareff and her Elle (French for “she”) magazine was launched in 1945. Weekly Elle instructed
French women how to be attractive and nice. The success of the magazine was huge and
many have identified Helene and Elle, and the readers identified with Helen – what was good
for Helen, was good for her readers.

One of her talents was that she was able to find the right person at the right time, she knew
how to create a star. In 1947 Helen promoted unknown designer Dior and his New Look, in
1950 she put on the cover, then unknown Brigitte Bardot, in 1952 she employed Francoise
Giroud, a feminist who later runs the famous French political weekly L’Express. In 1958 she
promoted the return of Coco Chanel, although at that time the French press did not favor
famous Mademoiselle.
Elle in 1965 promoted the futuristic vision in white by designer Courreges, and from week to
week Elle was written by Simone de Beauvoir, Marguerite Duras, Colette and Françoise Dolto.
Number of sold copies reached one million in 1960, when one out of six French women
regularly read Elle.

In the history of the publishing no editor had such a lasting impact on its magazine as it was
Helene. She left the magazine in 1972 when the sold circulation was around a million copies.
In the year 1988, when dying of Alzheimer’s disease, circulation of Elle dropped to barely 370
000 sold copies.
Golden era and the mad man
On the other side of the Atlantic, in USA began the golden era of magazines. What Paris was
for modern art in the late 19th and early 20th century, New York of the 50’s was in the
modern magazine art direction, specifically Madison Avenue the location of the largest
magazines of that era.

Manhattan was the birthplace of a new generation of designers and art directors who have
established design and magazine advertising as we know it today. Later this period was called
the Creative Revolution. In several buildings in Manhattan worked revolutionary giants –
Alexey Brodovitch for Harper’s Bazaar, Leo Lionni for Fortune, Steve Frankfurt for Young &
Rubicam, Herb Lubalin for Hennessey, Henry Wolf for Esquire, Art Paul for Playboy and
Alexander Liberman for Conde Nast.
However, with all the big names, making magazines was very difficult and time-consuming.
There were no computers and almighty Photoshop, everything was done manually, and the
main tools were pencils, erasers, rulers, tape. It took around four months to produce one issue.

One of the best and most influential magazines of golden era, both visually and literally, was
Esquire. While running from 1933, Esquire’s best years were in the mid of the 20th century,
when Henry Wolfe as art director transformed the magazine for men in the visual candy of
photographs and illustrations. Wolf was succeeded by Sam Antupit, who continued to create
wonderful designs until the end of the 60s. Literary greats that wrote for Esquire were Dos
Passos, Salinger, Huxley, Camus, Steinbeck, Pirandello and many other great pens of that era.
Evolution of magazines..
In Germany in 1959 legendary magazine Twen was released. Twen was a provocative magazine
for a younger audience, and it consisted of erotic photos and intelligent articles. Its editors
wanted to attract new younger generation, who wanted to differentiate from their parents,
and in this they succeeded.

In the seventies, emerged a new kind of magazine, celebrity magazine. The first issue of People
was out in 1974. Since then this kind of magazines has been the most selling one. Those years
brought a boom of women’s magazines. One of them was gaining in popularity and it was
Cosmopolitan.
Print didn’t die.
Some have predicted the death of the magazines, just like they have predicted the death of
the newspapers in the 90’s, but neither newspapers died, and neither will the magazines.
There will still be printed magazines, no matter how popular tablet editions are. Yes, the
numbers will drop but they will never die.

IPad is a great tool, and it brings new possibilities in magazine production for sure, but it
cannot replace that feeling of paper between your fingers. That smell of freshly printed pages.
There will always be a need for printed magazines.

Magazines shape our lives, telling us what to wear, what to eat, what to think about ourselves
and the world around us. Although this is the age of the Internet, we continue to enjoy
magazines, admire their pages, editorials, headlines. Is there anything nicer than to come
home after a hard day’s work, put on slippers, sit back in a sofa and read a favorite magazine
that you just grabbed at the local newsstand? And so from issue to issue…