When editors were gods

Birth of a bon vivant

It was on this day (July 19) in 1919, Malcolm Forbes, late editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine, Faberge egg and toy-soldier collector, and big league bon vivant, among other things, was born in Englewood, New Jersey. The magazine was founded by his father, the business journalist B.C. (for Bertie Charles) Forbes, who seems to have been as famous in his day as Malcolm was in his.

An editor with a famous racehorse in the family

William L. Chenery, editor and publisher of Collier's magazine for 25 years, died in Monterey, California, on this day (August 18) in 1974. He was 90. His brother, Christopher, owned the famous racehorse Secretariat. Chenery's autobiography is "So It Seemed," published in 1952.

What editors really want

Three answers to the perennial question:

"All the editors who do not write hope to, 'when they can get away from this beastly grind.'" — Sinclair Lewis, 1907.

"Every magazine editor, as is well known, has his moments of keen desire to be running a saw-mill somewhere." — Bliss Perry, editor of the Atlantic Monthly, 1908.

"An editor is a man who doesn't know what he wants but recognizes it instantly." — William E. Rae, editor-in-chief of Outdoor Life magazine from 1951 to 1972.

Bernarr Macfadden: Maybe the most colorful editor ever

On this day (August 16) in 1868, Bernarr Macfadden, a food and fitness faddist, publicity hound, and wildly successful magazine editor and publisher (Liberty, True Story, Photoplay, Physical Culture, etc.) was born in Missouri. Though generally viewed as a well-meaning quack, Macfadden seems to have had some success in applying his own theories, living to age 87 and celebrating his 81st birthday and several subsequent ones by parachuting out of an airplane. He is the subject of a recent biography, "Mr. America" by Mark Adams.

Also born on this day, in 1898, Jerome Irving Rodale, founder of the Rodale magazine empire.

And this was the cover date on the first issue of Sports Illustrated (1954).

Magazine titles that might have been

Ebony was almost named Jive.

Esquire was almost named Stag. Playboy was almost Stag Party.

Fortune was almost named Tycoon, a word founder Henry Luce himself had popularized via Time magazine.  

Life was almost named Look. Other titles that were considered for the famed  picture weekly included Pic, See, Showcase, and Dime. The last of those reportedly was Henry Luce's first choice until someone pointed out that he might someday want to raise the 10-cent cover price without having to change the name of his magazine.

Other names considered for The New Yorker included Manhattan, New York Life, New York Weekly, Our Town, and Truth.

Savoy was almost named Renaissance (deemed too long, according to founding E-in-C Roy Johnson).

Vibe was almost named Volume.

And some titles that briefly were:

Better Homes and Gardens began life as Fruit, Garden and Home.

Glamour magazine was originally titled Glamour of Hollywood (which, in turn, evolved out of a publication called the Hollywood Pattern Book).

Andy Warhol’s Interview was originally Inter/VIEW.

Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine was founded in the post-World War II years as Changing Times. 

Newsweek started out as News-Week, losing its hyphen in 1937.

Parents magazine started out as Children: The Magazine for Parents.

The Great Recession: It could be worse...

During the Great Depression, magazine selling crews often had to accept chickens and eggs, which they later sold, in return for subscriptions. In his 1960 memoir, "This Is Where I Came In," Edward Anthony, an editor and publisher of Collier's and Woman's Home Companion, recalls that, "it became standard practice in those days to ask circulation-department executives how the poultry business was."

Happy anniversaries Black Enterprise and Yankee!

Congratulations to two that beat the odds: Black Enterprise is currently celebrating its 40th anniversary, Yankee its 75th. Samir "Mr. Magazine" Husni recently had this interview with Yankee's Jamie Trowbridge.

The editor as the party of no

"One of the best qualifications for the editor is the capacity to say 'No!' resolutely and tenaciously." — Junius Henri Browne, writing on "The Trials of Magazine Editors" in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, 1889.

The editor as porcupine

"There are editors who carry their prerogatives about with them like the quills of a porcupine, upon which their business associates are forever being impaled." — William Webster Ellsworth in his book "The Golden Age of Authors: A Publisher's Recollection" (1919)

The editor as ghost

"My definition of an editor is a ghost writer or a ghost thinker." — Max Ascoli, editor of The Reporter magazine, 1968. 

The editor as symphony conductor

"An editor should be like the conductor of a symphony orchestra, trying to get the best performance he can out of each player; but at least in the three decades beginning with the 1920's, this was hard to do among the writers for The New Republic. It was like trying to conduct an orchestra some of whose members are disinclined to play at all, while others want to perform special compositions of their own, or to make discordant noises that are the equivalent of a Bronx cheer." — Bruce Bliven, editor-in-chief of The New Republic from 1930 to 1953, in his memoir, "Five Million Words Later." 

The editor as middle man

"Editors are middle-men. They buy what they can sell. One editor can sell one kind of story; another, another, and so according to clientele." — Frederic E. Manson, editor  of Grit, 1918.