When editors were gods

The sensitive editor

"…the editor must have a more sensitive and impulsive reaction to each and every little thing than anyone else. If you feel, he feels 10 times as much. If you hurt, he hurts 100 times as much. If your eyes moisten, he is bathed in tears. This is figurative, of course, but it is the editor’s acute awareness that makes him struggle to make each word, and each paragraph and each spot on a page a fraction better than it otherwise would be." — Aron M. Mathieu, writing in Writer's Digest magazine, 1957.

Mathieu was at that time the business manager of Writer's Digest. His 1996 Cincinnati Enquirer obituary says he was a former editor of Modern Photography magazine, previously known as Minicam Photography. He also seems to have been a very astute photograph collector, judging by this 2021 auction description.

The ideal article, the ideal illustration

"Every human being likes to see himself in reading matter just as he likes to look at himself in the mirror. The ideal article for a magazine would be one in which every reader could find his own name. The ideal illustration would be a group photograph of all the readers so that each reader could take an afternoon off and find himself in the picture." — John M. Siddall, editor of the American Magazine, when asked for the secret of his success by B.C. Forbes, editor of Forbes.

Forbes recalled the quote in a 1923 newspaper article reflecting on Siddall's recent death, which Forbes attributed in large part to overwork.

Though Siddall and his magazine are all but forgotten now, both were household names in their day.

The brutally murdered editor who inspired a movie classic

On this day (March 20) in 1927, Albert Snyder, mild-mannered art editor of Motor Boating magazine, was beaten, strangled, and chloroformed to death by Judd Gray, lover of Snyder's apparently scheming wife, Ruth. The ensuing trial became one of the most sensational of the 1920s, despite protests by writers such as Damon Runyon that neither perpetrator was worth the attention. The widow Snyder gained immortality of a sort when her final, blurry moments in the electric chair were recorded by a hidden camera strapped around a photographer's ankle. The case later inspired, very loosely, the much better novel and film "Double Indemnity." 

More Reader's Digest treasures go on the block

On December 13, the Manhattan auction house Christie's is auctioning off some photographs that apparently once belonged to The Reader's Digest Association, including this one by the wonderful Elliott Erwitt. Though the little magazine was never known for photography, its owners apparently had an eye for it. The Digest sold off many of its most valuable pieces a dozen years ago last month.

Look magazine, R.I.P.

Look magazine, circulation 9 million, ceased publication on this day (October 19) in 1971 after a 34-year run. Some 5 million of its photos now reside in the Library of Congress.

On this day...

... in 1964, Time. Inc. announced that it was ceasing publication of its trade title Architectural Forum and selling the magazine's spinoff, House & Home, to McGraw-Hill. Architectural Forum later found new owners and ran for another decade. Among its junior editors, starting in 1952, was Jane Jacobs, destined for later fame as an author and urban theorist.

On this day...

... in 1927, Albert Snyder, mild-mannered art editor of Motor Boating magazine, was beaten, strangled, and chloroformed to death by Judd Gray, lover of Snyder's apparently scheming wife, Ruth. The ensuing trial became one of the most sensational of the 1920s, despite protests by writers such as Damon Runyon that neither perpetrator was worth the attention. The widow Snyder gained immortality of a sort when her final, blurry moments in the electric chair were recorded by a hidden camera strapped around a photographer's ankle. The case later inspired, very loosely, the much better novel and film "Double Indemnity." 

On this day...

... in 1936, Life magazine officially made its debut as a picture weekly (November 23 was the cover date). What are said to be millions of photos from Life's archives are searchable here. 

On this day...

... in 1971, Look magazine, circulation 9 million, ceased publication after a 34-year run. Some 5 million of its photos now reside in the Library of Congress.

Quote

"On my own initiative, I created a photo essay on Bronx playground bullies which failed to impress Dan Mich, the powerful editor of Look magazine. However I was invited to a party at which male and female Look staffers went into a little room and then popped out, wearing each others' underwear." — Writer Bruce Jay Friedman, recalling his early attempts to break into the magazine business, in his book "Even the Rhinos Were Nymphos" (2000). 

On this day...

... in 1945, the U.S. court of appeals ruled that the Postmaster General had exceeded his authority in suspending Esquire's second-class mailing privileges on grounds that the magazine's contents, particularly its famous Varga Girl paintings, were "morally sub-standard." The case went on to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in February 1946 also ruled in Esquire's favor.

Also on this day, in 1963, Playboy editor and publisher Hugh Hefner was arrested on obscenity charges for printing nude photographs of actress Jayne Mansfield. Asked to comment on the case, Mansfield replied that, "Beauty cannot be obscene."

On this day...

... in 1915, a German torpedo sank the British passenger liner R.M.S. Lusitania off the southern coast of Ireland, killing about 1,195 passengers and crew (published accounts differ on the exact number). Among the victims were two well-known editors of the day, Elbert Hubbard, editor of The Philistine, and Herbert S. Stone, editor of The House Beautiful. Coincidentally, Hubbard seems to have been fascinated by the sinking of another British liner, the Titanic, three years earlier, and wrote a number of pieces, like this one, about it.

Also on this day, in 1961, Carmel Snow, former editor of Harper's Bazaar, died in her sleep at age 73. Reacting to the news, the photographer Richard Avedon, a Snow discovery, said, "She wasn't just an editor, she was the only editor."