Life magazine

Identification Weekly large-format magazine devoted to pictorial journalism

Publisher Henry R. Luce (1898-1967)

Date First issue released on November 23, 1936

Life was the first popular American magazine based on the emotional power and journalistic possibilities of the photographic image. The influential weekly pioneered the concept of the picture essay, built on a series of photographic images, and necessitated new printing technologies able to produce a huge volume of magazines on high-quality paper in a short time. Originally sold at American newsstands for a dime, Life was an immediate hit with readers (and advertisers) and enjoyed great success for two generations.

In 1936, Henry R. Luce, with colleagues from Time Inc., solidified plans for a new weekly based on pictorial journalism. Luce bought the name and assets of Life magazine, a literary and entertainment magazine in its fifty-fourth year of publication, to use its title for his version of Life. Already a major force in the media world, with the magazines Time (1923) and Fortune (1930) and the newsreel The March of Time (weekly beginning in 1931; monthly in 1935) under his control, Luce sought to mobilize what he called “picture magic” into a commercially viable, journalistically respectable publishing venture.

Memorable photographs were vital for the new magazine’s success, and Life assembled a staff of top photographers. The first issue displayed five pages of photographs by Alfred Eisenstaedt. Margaret Bourke-White, previously at Fortune, shot the first cover image, a now iconic view of Fort Peck Dam. Inside the issue were candid photographs of the Montana dam community. In what quickly became a signature style, the new magazine presented a strip of photographs in a narrative sequence over eight pages, resulting in a photographic essay. The images were accompanied by short, clear captions, and the series concluded with a single-paragraph summary.

Many of the key figures in the formation and early production of Life were men still in their thirties, as was the first managing editor, John Shaw Billings, who held the post for eight years before becoming director of Time Inc. The first issue of Life sold out nationwide the first day; within four months, one million copies were circulating, many with a substantial “pass-along” readership. Because of the huge demand, Life actually lost money at first, since advertising rates had been sold for a predicted, far smaller readership; however, by 1938 the magazine was profitable.

Introduced during the Depression years, Life nevertheless adopted a conservative tone, supporting business and opposing unions, and was decidedly pro-American. In early 1941, Luce appealed directly to readers in a five-page, picture-free essay titled “The American Century” in which he outlined the responsibilities of American leadership in world affairs. Later that year, the United States entered World War II and Life became a war magazine with forty war correspondents (six of them women). For more than two hundred issues, war-connected photographs and stories dominated the pages of Life, including home-front coverage, typically emphasizing American pluck, good humor, and optimism. Relations between the magazine and military censors became increasing tense as the war continued, yet the War and Navy departments realized that Life supported the war effort and commanded the attention of millions. George Strock’s striking photograph of three dead G.I.’s on a beach in New Guinea found its way past censors who had forbidden images of American casualties.

Life stationed journalists in all war theaters; remarkable pictures of the war, often shot on battlefields at great risk by photographers—most notably Bourke-White, Robert Capa, David Douglas Duncan, Henri Huet, and W. Eugene Smith—would leave lasting images in the minds of millions. But it was not only photographs that made an impact: The July 5, 1943, issue, in twenty-three pages, listed the name, state, and hometown of the 12,987 Americans who had been killed in the first eighteen months of the war. Victory was also celebrated pictorially, with the photograph by Eisenstaedt of a sailor embracing a nurse in New York’s Times Square on V-J Day becoming one of the most reproduced, and beloved, photographs of the war years.

After the war, Life turned its attention to the attractions, complexities, and daily dramas of modern living. In 1946, the newsstand price had risen to fifteen cents, with paid circulation over 5 million and estimates of a weekly readership greater than 20 million. Luce’s Republican desires embarrassed him when he approved a story about Thomas E. Dewey, described as “the next president” in an issue that closed a few days before Harry S. Truman was elected president in November, 1948. Although Luce well understood that photographs such as Rita Hayworth posing in a nightgown and animals in surprising postures drew readers, he also urged attention to art. The art features retained popular appeal, however, such as the 1949 Christmas issue that included a twenty-two-page color essay on Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel.

Under the leadership of the managing editor Edward K. Thompson, Life prospered. The skilled efforts of Mary Hamman, modern living editor, Mary Letherbee, movie editor, and Sally Kirkland, fashion editor, dispelled the original fear that Life would not appeal to women readers. In the postwar years, Life carried fiction by admired authors and serialized the memoirs of Sir Winston Churchill, President Harry S. Truman, and General Douglas MacArthur. In the first twenty years of Life, advertising revenue exceeded $1 billion.

The ubiquitous stream of images on television and the changing tastes of Americans during the 1960’s diminished the conservative appeal of Life. The magazine experimented with different emphases, formats, and even magazine size in the next decades, but it never regained its prominence. Between 1972 and 1978, the magazine appeared intermittently, then as a monthly from 1978 to 2000, and finally as a weekly newspaper supplement from 2004 to 2007. A new Internet life for Life photographs emerged in the new century. First, in partnership with Google in November, 2008, Life made its photographic archives accessible; then, in March, 2009, Life.com, a joint venture between Getty Images and Life, was launched, introducing a new audience to memorable photographs from Life.

Impact

The tremendous success of Life spawned a cluster of general-interest “look-through” magazines, most immediately and directly the biweekly Look (1937-1971). Life shaped a new style of American print advertising and solidified the narrative possibilities of striking images.

Bibliography

Angeletti, Norberto, and Alberto Oliva. Magazines That Make History: Their Origins, Development, and Influence. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2004.

Doss, Erika, ed. Looking at “Life” Magazine. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001.

Wainwright, Loudon. The Great American Magazine: An Inside History of “Life.” New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986.