American monthly magazine
Harper's Magazine
is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. Launched in
New York City
in June 1850, it is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the United States.
[a]
Harper's Magazine
has won 22
National Magazine Awards
.
[1]
Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the magazine published works of prominent authors and political figures, including
Herman Melville
,
Woodrow Wilson
, and
Winston Churchill
.
Willie Morris
's resignation as editor in 1971 was considered a major event, and many other employees of the magazine resigned with him. The magazine has developed into the 21st century, adding several blogs.
History
[
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]
19th century
[
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]
Harper's Magazine
began as
Harper's New Monthly Magazine
in
New York City
in June 1850, by publisher
Harper & Brothers
. The company also founded the magazines
Harper's Weekly
and
Harper's Bazaar
, and grew to become
HarperCollins
. The first press run of
Harper's Magazine
included 7,500 copies and sold out almost immediately. Six months later, the magazine's circulation had grown to 50,000.
[2]
The early issues reprinted material pirated from English authors such as
Charles Dickens
,
William Makepeace Thackeray
, and the
Bronte sisters
.
[3]
The magazine soon was publishing the work of American artists and writers, and in time commentary by the likes of
Winston Churchill
and
Woodrow Wilson
. Portions of Herman Melville's novel
Moby-Dick
were first published in the October 1851 issue of
Harper's
under the title, "The Town-Ho's Story", named after Chapter 54 of
Moby-Dick
.
[4]
20th century
[
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]
In 1962, Harper & Brothers merged with Row, Peterson & Company, becoming Harper & Row (now
HarperCollins
). In 1965, the magazine was separately incorporated, and became a division of the
Minneapolis Star and Tribune Company
, owned by the
Cowles Media Company
.
In the 1970s,
Harper's Magazine
published
Seymour Hersh
's reporting of the
My Lai Massacre
by United States forces in Vietnam. In 1971, editor
Willie Morris
resigned under pressure from owner
John Cowles Jr.
, prompting resignations from many of the magazine's star contributors and staffers, including
Norman Mailer
,
David Halberstam
,
Robert Kotlowitz
,
Marshall Frady
, and
Larry L. King
:
Morris's departure jolted the literary world. Mailer,
William Styron
,
Gay Talese
,
Bill Moyers
, and
Tom Wicker
declared that they would boycott Harper's as long as the Cowles family owned it, and the four staff writers hired by Morris?Frady among them?resigned in solidarity with him.
Robert Shnayerson, a senior editor at
Time
magazine, was hired to replace Morris as
Harper's
ninth editor, serving in that position from 1971 until 1976.
[6]
[7]
Lewis H. Lapham
served as managing editor from 1976 until 1981; he returned to the position again from 1983 until 2006. On June 17, 1980, the Star Tribune announced it would cease publishing
Harper's Magazine
after the August 1980 issue, but on July 9, 1980,
John R. MacArthur
(who goes by the name Rick) and his father, Roderick, obtained pledges from the directorial boards of the
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
, the
Atlantic Richfield Company
, and CEO
Robert Orville Anderson
to amass the $1.5 million needed to establish the Harper's Magazine Foundation. It now publishes the magazine.
[8]
[9]
[10]
In 1984, Lapham and MacArthur, now publisher and president of the foundation, respectively, along with new executive editor
Michael Pollan
, redesigned
Harper's
and introduced the "Harper's Index" with statistics arranged for , "Readings", and the "Annotation" departments to complement its fiction, essays, reportage, and reviews.
21st century
[
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]
Under the Lapham and MacArthur's leadership,
Harper's Magazine
continued publishing literary fiction by
John Updike
,
George Saunders
, and others. Politically,
Harper's
has been a vocal critic of U.S. domestic and foreign policies. Editor Lapham's monthly "Notebook" columns have lambasted the
Clinton
and the
George W. Bush
administrations. Beginning in 2003, the magazine concentrated on reportage the
Iraq War
, including long articles on the
battle for Fallujah
, and the cronyism of the
American reconstruction of Iraq
. Other reporting has covered abortion issues, cloning, and global warming.
[11]
In 2007,
Harper's
added the
No Comment
blog by attorney
Scott Horton
about legal controversies,
Central Asian
politics, and
German
studies. In April 2006,
Harper's
began publishing the
Washington Babylon
blog on its website,
[12]
written by
Washington, D.C.
editor
Ken Silverstein
about American politics; and in 2008,
Harper's
added the
Sentences
blog by contributing editor
Wyatt Mason
, about literature and
belles lettres
. Since that time, these two blogs have ceased publication. Another website feature, featuring a rotating set of authors, is the "Weekly Review", a three-paragraph distillation of the week's political, scientific, and bizarre news. Like "Harper's Index" and "Findings" in the print edition of the magazine, "Weekly Review" items are typically arranged for ironic contrast.
As of the December 2019 issue, Julian Lucas writes the print edition's "New Books" column.
Controversies
[
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]
Editor
Lewis H. Lapham
was criticized for his reportage of the
2004 Republican National Convention
, which had yet to occur, in his essay "Tentacles of Rage: The Republican Propaganda Mill, a Brief History", published in the September 2004 issue, which implied that he had attended the convention. He apologized in a note.
[13]
[14]
Lapham left two years later, after 28 years as
Harper's
editor-in-chief, and launched
Lapham's Quarterly
.
The August 2004 issue contained a photo essay by noted photojournalist
Peter Turnley
, who was hired to do a series of photo essays for the magazine. The eight-page spread in August 2004 showed images of death, grieving, and funerals from both sides of the
war in Afghanistan
. On the U.S. side, Turnley visited the funeral of an Oklahoma National Guard member, Spc. Kyle Brinlee, 21, who was killed when his vehicle ran over an improvised explosive device (IED) in
Afghanistan
. During his funeral, Turnley photographed the open casket as it lay in the back of the high school auditorium where the funeral was held to accommodate 1,200 mourners, and the photo was used in the photo essay. Brinlee's family subsequently sued the magazine in federal court. The case ended in 2007 when the
U.S. Supreme Court
ruled that the unauthorized publication was in "poor taste" but upheld the ruling of the
Tenth Circuit
that the magazine had not violated the privacy rights of the family, since the family had invited the press and, according the court, "opened up the funeral scene to the public eye".
[15]
The March 2006 issue included an article by
Celia Farber
, "Out of Control: AIDS and the Corruption of Medical Science", presenting
Peter Duesberg
's
theory that HIV does not cause AIDS
.
[16]
[17]
It was strongly criticized by AIDS activists,
[18]
scientists and physicians,
[19]
the
Columbia Journalism Review
,
[20]
and others as inaccurate and promoting a scientifically discredited theory.
[21]
The
Treatment Action Campaign
, a South African organization working for greater popular access to HIV treatments, posted a response by eight researchers documenting more than 50 errors in the article.
[22]
In 2006, Lapham was succeeded as
Harper's
editor by
Roger Hodge
.
[23]
Since that time, the magazine has had a number of shorter-termed editors in chief, several of whom were fired amid various controversies.
[23]
On January 25, 2010, the firing of the magazine's editor, Roger Hodge, by publisher John R. MacArthur was met with criticism among the magazine's subscribers and staff.
[24]
[25]
[26]
MacArthur initially claimed Hodge was stepping down for "personal reasons", but later disclosed that he fired Hodge.
[27]
Ellen Rosenbush
served as editor from 2010 to 2015. She returned in January 2016 when MacArthur fired Christopher Cox, who had been named editor only three months prior in October 2015.
[23]
[28]
James Marcus assumed the post of editor in 2016.
[23]
In March 2018, an essay by
Katie Roiphe
on the
#MeToo
movement excited controversy both online and inside
Harper's
. Marcus had complained about the piece, suggesting the critique of #MeToo was inappropriate in light of
Harper's
"longtime reputation as a gentleman's smoking club"; he attributed this disagreement as a primary cause of his firing in 2018.
[23]
In April 2018, Ellen Rosenbush assumed the title of editorial director. In October 2019, the magazine announced that novelist and essayist Christopher Beha would be taking over as editor, with Rosenbush remaining as editor-at-large.
[29]
In July 2020,
Harper's
published an
open letter
called "
A Letter on Justice and Open Debate
" criticizing "illiberalism" and promoting a tolerance of different viewpoints. The letter received a mixed response on
Twitter
with some remarking that the prominent signatories had "bigger platforms and more resources than most other humans" and were unlikely to face repercussions for anything they said, and others taking umbrage at particular signatories such as
J. K. Rowling
, who faced recent criticism for
her comments on transgender issues
.
[30]
[31]
Notable contributors
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]
Gallery
[
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]
- Posters by
Edward Penfield
-
January 1894
-
January 1895
-
June 1896
-
December 1896
-
May 1897
Notes
[
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References
[
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]
- ^
"Awards and Honors"
(PDF)
.
Harpers.org
. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 29 September 2006
. Retrieved
29 December
2014
.
- ^
"History of Harper's"
(PDF)
. Harpers.org. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 18 February 2007
. Retrieved
29 December
2014
.
- ^
"Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. History: Publishing Industry"
. answers.com.
Archived
from the original on 2013-02-11
. Retrieved
2013-02-13
.
- ^
"JiffyNotes: Moby Dick: Summary: Chapters 51 ? 55"
. Jiffynotes.com. Archived from
the original
on 26 December 2014
. Retrieved
29 December
2014
.
- ^
Scott, Sherman (Nov?Dec 2007).
"The Unvanquished"
. Cjr.org.
Archived
from the original on 2012-05-17
. Retrieved
2012-05-16
.
- ^
"The Press: New Head at Harper's"
.
Time
. June 28, 1971. Archived from
the original
on March 12, 2008
. Retrieved
2012-05-16
.
- ^
"About This Issue"
.
Harper's Magazine
. September 1971.
Archived
from the original on 2012-02-11
. Retrieved
2012-05-16
.
- ^
Facts on File 1980 Yearbook
, pp.501, 582
- ^
Woo, Elaine (December 5, 2007).
"Arco founder led firm into major civic philanthropy"
.
Los Angeles Times
. p. B6.
Archived
from the original on May 28, 2020
. Retrieved
December 7,
2007
.
- ^
"NY Times Makes Harper's Publisher Look Ineffective"
. Mediaite.com. February 1, 2010.
Archived
from the original on 29 December 2014
. Retrieved
29 December
2014
.
- ^
An American Album: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Harper's Magazine
, a 712-page illustrated anthology, with an introduction by Lewis H. Lapham and a foreword by
Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
- ^
Harpers.org
Archived
April 24, 2006, at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
Shafer, Jack. "
Lewis Lapham Phones It In: Figuring out what's wrong with Harper's magazine
Archived
2008-07-25 at the
Wayback Machine
".
Slate
15 September 2004.
- ^
Lapham, Lewis H. "
Tentacles of rage: The Republican propaganda mill, a brief history
Archived
2008-07-06 at the
Wayback Machine
".
Harper's
September 2004. pp. 43?53.
- ^
Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the Press,
Dismissal upheld in magazine's open-casket photo case
Archived
2017-02-24 at the
Wayback Machine
, March 28, 2007.
- ^
Farber, Celia (March 1, 2006).
"Out Of Control, AIDS and the corruption of medical science"
.
Harper's Magazine
. Vol. March 2006.
Archived
from the original on 2013-01-28
. Retrieved
2006-03-13
.
- ^
Miller, Lia (March 13, 2006).
"An Article in Harper's Ignites a Controversy Over H.I.V."
The New York Times
.
Archived
from the original on 2009-04-24
. Retrieved
2006-03-13
.
- ^
Farber Feedback
. POZ Magazine. 2006-02-27.
Archived
from the original on 2006-03-25
. Retrieved
2006-03-13
.
- ^
Letters from scientists and physicians criticizing Harper's for poor fact-checking of Celia Farber's article on AIDS.
Accessed 21 Oct 2006.
Archived
August 12, 2006, at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
Harper's Races Right over the Edge of a Cliff
Archived
2016-08-19 at the
Wayback Machine
, by Gal Beckerman. Published in the
Columbia Journalism Review
on March 8, 2006. Accessed June 14, 2007.
- ^
Kim, Richard (March 2, 2006).
Harper's Publishes AIDS Denialist
.
Archived
from the original on 2014-10-30
. Retrieved
2006-03-13
.
- ^
Gallo, Robert; Nathan Geffen; Gregg Gonsalves; Richard Jeffreys;
Daniel R. Kuritzkes
; Bruce Mirken; John P. Moore; Jeffrey T. Safrit (March 4, 2006).
Errors in Celia Farber's March 2006 article in Harper's Magazine
(PDF)
. Treatment Action Campaign. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 2009-06-16
. Retrieved
2006-03-13
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
Jaclyn Peiser,
"Harper's Editor Insists He Was Fired Over Katie Roiphe Essay"
Archived
2018-04-19 at the
Wayback Machine
,
The New York Times
, April 18, 2018.
- ^
Clifford, Stephanie (January 31, 2010).
"Editorial Shake-Up as Harper's Tries to Stabilize in a Downturn"
.
The New York Times
.
Archived
from the original on 29 December 2014
. Retrieved
29 December
2014
.
- ^
"Harper's Publisher Backlash Grows After Firing Beloved Editor"
. Mediaite.com. February 3, 2010.
Archived
from the original on 29 December 2014
. Retrieved
29 December
2014
.
- ^
John Koblin (2010-02-02).
"Listening in on the Harper's Meltdown"
.
The New York Observer
.
Archived
from the original on 2014-12-29
. Retrieved
29 December
2014
.
- ^
Clifford, Stephanie (January 26, 2010).
"Update: Harper's Magazine Editor Hodge Fired; Didn't Quit"
.
The New York Times
.
Archived
from the original on 29 December 2014
. Retrieved
29 December
2014
.
- ^
Alexandra Alter (2016-02-02).
"Harper's Magazine Publisher Fires Christopher Cox as Editor"
.
The New York Times
.
Archived
from the original on 2016-02-08
. Retrieved
18 May
2016
.
- ^
Tracy, Marc (2019-10-21).
"A New Top Editor Takes the Hot Seat at Harper's Magazine"
.
The New York Times
.
ISSN
0362-4331
.
Archived
from the original on 2019-10-24
. Retrieved
2019-10-24
.
- ^
Schuessler, Jennifer; Harris, Elizabeth A. (7 July 2020).
"Artists and Writers Warn of an 'Intolerant Climate.' Reaction Is Swift"
.
The New York Times
.
Archived
from the original on 10 March 2021
. Retrieved
9 July
2020
.
- ^
Chiu, Allyson (8 July 2020).
"Letter signed by J.K. Rowling, Noam Chomsky warning of stifled free speech draws mixed reviews"
.
The Washington Post
.
Archived
from the original on 24 July 2020
. Retrieved
9 July
2020
.
Further reading
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External links
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]