How did the Saturday Evening Post become America's longest-lived magazine? Well, we had help from Benjamin Franklin. In 1723, young Ben arrived in Philadelphia and began publishing a weekly newspaper. He named it the Pennsylvania Gazette. Franklin intended it for readers in all the American colonies, and within a few years, it was the most successful publication in America.
Its popularity can be attributed to Franklin's sense of what the public wanted to read and discuss Twice a week, the Gazette offered local and international news gathered from other publications. In time, he expanded the content to include editorials, essays, and correspondence from readers, which he sometimes wrote himself. The Gazette also included some of the earliest advertisements to appear in America.
Circulation rose further when Franklin was appointed Philadelphia's postmaster, which enabled him to to include copies of the Gazette in mail deliveries. Franklin's goal was to produce a publication that was both useful and entertaining. In 1750, for example, Franklin gave sensible advice on how to become a successful businessman.
Be honest, he said. Keep a close eye on the books. And work hard. That same year, he offered his advice on how to become an obnoxious friend. The season of the Great War secret, he wrote, was to do all the talking and only talk about yourself.
In 1748, Franklin retired from business, and in 1800, the Gazette stopped publishing. Then, 21 years later, new publishers revived Franklin's print shop to put out a weekly newspaper. They also revived Franklin's editorial style. Like the Gazette, the new publication promoted his ideals of hard work, industry, and education. It reflected the spirit of the man who said, honesty is the best policy, diligence is the mother of luck, and if passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.
Like the Gazette, this new paper also featured articles promoting morals and virtue, frequently mixed with humor. It was called the Saturday Evening Post because it was printed in time to be delivered to Philadelphians in the second mail delivery. on Saturdays. In addition to local news, the Post reported items of national interest like the deaths of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson on the same day in 1826, the death of Napoleon, the Mexican-American War.
There was political news, commodity prices, fashion, the latest technology, local politics, crime, Even pirates! Circulation grew steadily and the Post earned a national reputation for its dedication to pure literature, news, agriculture, humor, etc. By the 1860s, the Saturday Evening Post had 90,000 subscribers nationwide.
It had achieved Franklin's dream of being a paper for the whole nation. But that nation was about to break apart when the Civil War broke out. Civil War began, the Saturday Evening Post suffered a loss of circulation.
The Post Office no longer crossed into Confederate States to deliver mail. Northern subscribers still received the magazine, and they would read the latest reports of the fighting, sometimes accompanied by illustrations. In 1863, the Post provided a first-hand account of the Battle of Gettysburg and what would later be known as Pickett's Charge. A reporter called it the decisive battle of the war.
In 1865, just one week after reporting General Lee's surrender, the Post rushed its April 22nd issue into print, carrying the bitter news of Lincoln's death. Then, with the return of peace, the Post seemed to lose interest in news. By 1867, it announced it was now neutral in politics and wouldn't discuss political or sectarian questions It was now dedicated to literature. The paper had always included fiction, and the front page was always taken up with an installment of a serialized novel.
But now the Post carried even more stories, with a few short news items, poetry, and in the back pages, Advertisements for patent medicines. In the days before food and drug laws, these products could promise any result and usually did. Over the years, the ads calmed down and offered images of healthy, affectionate couples, much like today's drug ads. In the decades after the war, the Post steadily lost readers. They tried to regain circulation by offering premiums to subscribers.
One year, every new subscriber received this engraving, titled, One of Life's Best. happy hours. And anyone who submitted 20 subscriptions would receive a Grover and Baker's number 23 sewing machine. By the 1890s, the Post was almost entirely fiction. Twelve of its 16 pages were covered with serialized novels and short stories.
The magazine that had once published Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens, and Harriet Beecher Stowe was now publishing such obscure authors that their names weren't even included with their stories. By now, the Post was facing hard times. Its circulation, which had been 90,000 before the war, had sunk to less than 2,000.
subscribers. But then this fading publication caught the attention of the man who would become the most successful publisher in American history. Cyrus Curtis had already made a fortune by 1897. He had developed the Ladies Home Journal from a two-page supplement in a farming paper into the first magazine to reach 1 million subscribers. Curtis thought he could reproduce this success with a magazine for men.
Hearing that the Saturday Evening Post was failing, he bought its name, reputation, and well-worn type for just $1,000. It was the beginning of a long investment. In 1900, Curtis learned he'd sunk $800,000 into the magazine. So he invested another $200,000 without hesitating.
That'll bring us up to the million mark, he said, and then we'll know where we are. Before Before he was done, he spent the equivalent of $35 million in today's money to launch the New Post. That investment was needed because the Post faced a lot of tough competition at the turn of the century. America's newsstands were crowded with aspiring magazines and newspapers. Curtis was confident the New Post would succeed because, well, he had the money to fund it.
Here he is on the deck of his 228-foot yacht. the Lindonia, where he admitted he lived half his life. Just as important, Curtis had found the right editor, a young man named George Horace Lorimer, who shared Curtis's vision of creating a magazine for the entire country, something that had never been tried before. Lorimer knew he could reach American men by addressing their common desire for success.
With the new century, the country had entered an ambitious era, More and more Americans were leaving the farm for the city, where fortunes were being made in banking and investing, and in America's growing industrial power. The U.S. now held most of the world's manufacturing capacity. Lorimer edited the post for Americans who wanted to be part of the growing wealth.
Even if they weren't interested in getting ahead, Lorimer knew American men were always interested in being better informed. So he ran hundreds of articles explaining current business, law, politics, and history. For fiction, he solicited works from the day's most popular writers, Bret Hart, Rudyard Kipling, Richard Harding Davis, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and Stephen Crane.
Lorimer looked for stories with what he considered traditional American values, responsibility, hard work, practicality, patriotism and a deep faith in humankind. He was just as particular about his choice of illustrators. He paid a premium to secure the work of the day's best artists Harrison Fisher, Guernsey Moore, Frederick Remington and others.
The Post underwent a great transformation as its circulation rose from 1,800 to half a million in just five years. In In 1902, the magazine was receiving up to 4,000 new subscriptions a day. The Post's success can also be seen in the growth of advertisements in the magazine.
10 years, its ad sales increased 17,000 percent. By 1910, Cyrus Curtis had outgrown his headquarters at 425 Arch Street in Philadelphia, so he built an impressive new office building overlooking Independence Square, which remained the post- home for the next 70 years. By 1918, the Saturday Evening Post had become America's most popular magazine. Its editor, George Horace Lorimer, had a strong sense of what Americans wanted to read. upbeat modern fiction, and articles about American opportunity.
He had recently boosted circulation by sending some of the Post's best writers to cover the American army fighting the Great War in Europe. The Post's paid circulation now stood at two million, which translated into an estimated ten million readers every week. Businesses were soon clamoring to have their advertising in the Post. In 1897, In 1997, the magazine took in only $6,000 annually in advertising. But by 1917, the Post had become the industry leader in ad revenue, with sales topping $16 million.
And then, in the 1920s, the Post increased its revenues over 300% to $50 million. Throughout this decade, the ads increased in size and visual impact. The nation grew familiar. were the brand names and trademarks they saw in the Post. The 1920s were prosperous times for many Americans.
The economy grew by 42%. The Dow rose from 72 to 381 points. Consumer credit expanded, and Americans were buying the electric appliances they were seeing in the Post. though as late as 1925, most American houses still didn't have electric power. Another sign of prosperity was the automotive industry.
The number of cars and trucks rose over 300% during this decade. Growing ad revenues allowed editor Lorimer to add more content. Throughout the 20s, issues containing 140 to 220 pages would arrive every week at American homes, from modest bungalows to the White House. For men and women in those days before mass media, the Post was America.
Its articles chronicled the country's passage into a new age. Cover art and story illustrations revealed changing fashions and manners. In hundreds of short stories and serialized novels, the Post offered traditional westerns and mysteries, but also introduced readers to the Jazz Age through the stories of F.
Scott Fitzgerald, to new fads which were satirized by Sinclair Lewis, and to international politics genially mocked by Will Smith. Will Rogers. In light of the Post's prominence and long history, Lorimer felt entitled to give the magazine a motto.
He called it an American institution. But the Post and America were about to enter darker days. The economic collapse of 1930 shattered many Americans'dreams for the future. The Post had long warned readers against speculating in the stock market. Now, said the editor, it was time for everyone to get back to hard work.
And that was also true for the Post. When ad revenues fell by 60 percent, the magazine had to work hard to pull in advertising. Instead of the 274-page issues, the Post was being published with as few as 74 pages.
The magazine began broadening its appeal by covering more sports, especially baseball, boxing, and other sports. and college football. F. Scott Fitzgerald stories were still appearing in the 1930s, but a new generation of authors was emerging. Authors like William Faulkner and J.D.
Salengate. Plus, a few surprises, like Leon Trotsky submitting his account of the Russian Revolution, and the avant-garde novelist Gertrude Stein writing on, of all things, money. The 30s was a great decade for detective fiction. The Post introduced two highly popular series based on Asian detectives, Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto. The magazine also ran mysteries by Agatha Christie, Earl Stanley Gardner, Raymond Chandler and Rex Stout.
As circulation began rising again in 1934, so did the editor's awareness of the competition from a new medium, radio. Most homes now had one, and each evening millions of Americans were putting down their magazines to listen to programs from national networks. The Post faced another challenge in 1936 when the photojournalism of Life magazine became very popular.
Seeing Life's rapid growth, growth, the Post began using more photography, even on its cover. But a far bigger concern was the possibility of war. As the 40s approached, the editors noted the rise of militarism in Asia and of fascism in Europe, as well as here at home.
The magazine abandoned its isolationism when the Germans swiftly overran France. Once the war began for America, the Post published reports on fighting from journalists and service members in the European and Pacific theaters. A memorable series came from one of the very few American pilots to engage Japanese fighter planes over Pearl Harbor.
A Marine captain reported on the relentless fighting in the Solomons. Another correspondent described the earliest fighting of D-Day by U.S. paratroopers. And there was the stirring account of how overwhelmed American forces at at Bastogne, held on while surrounded by a fierce German onslaught. The reporting continued right up to the end of the war, marked by the Post's exclusive color photo of the Japanese surrender. America's servicemen were often the subjects for cover art.
Norman Rockwell contributed his version of the everyman in uniform, a G.I. named Willie Gillis. And he put a face, a noble profile, to all the rosy-the-rimmed.
riveters working in defense plants. But nothing exceeded the impact of his four freedoms. According to the New Yorker magazine, their exhibition was received by the public with more enthusiasm perhaps than any other paintings in the history of American art.
They were so effective that 78 years later, they still inspire Americans. With the war over, the Post began some of its best years, changing again as the prosperous 50s led into the turbulent 60s. The 1950s brought Americans the peace and prosperity they dreamed of for decades.
For many, it meant an era of big cars, a home in the suburbs, more family time and vacations, and a higher standard of living. It was an era that was well reflected by the Saturday Evening Post. Its covers, especially those by Norma, and Rockwell offered reassuring images of timeless, traditional America.
Inside was fiction, both novels and stories that almost always had happy endings, including works by Ray Bradbury and Kurt Vonnegut. But the 50s weren't just the time of carefree affluence. It was a decade of many worries.
About Russians, atomic bombs, national security and civil defense. The Korean War. Young people labeled juvenile delinquents and a swiftly growing death toll on America's highways.
The Post was still one of America's favorite magazines, but the editors were facing new challenges in the 50s. Production costs were going up. The Post was now paying $20 million a year just for paper. It was now competing with other successful general interest magazines like life and look.
The competition forced the Post to pay up to $150,000 to obtain exclusive articles. In 1950, the magazine grossed over $150 million, but netted only $6 million. And now television was cutting into its ad revenues.
Businesses realized that the young TV industry could let them reach more people for less money. But even with these difficulties, circulation climbed to six and a half million. The magazine had changed a lot from fifty years earlier, when its chief focus was American business. And the country had changed too.
But a more significant transformation for both lay just a few years ahead. With all the other turmoil of the 1960s, the changes in the magazine industry merited only one. passing attention. But they had wide implications for how Americans stayed informed.
What had once been a thriving industry was now struggling as America became increasingly reliant on televised news and entertainment. And even TV had difficulty keeping up with the changing manners, morals, and attitudes. Curtis Publishing had long been an industry giant, but its operations had become increasingly costly by 1961. The Post couldn't earn the $100 million a year it needed to stay profitable. New editors believed they could increase circulation if they dropped The Post's traditional small-town perspective of the world.
So, in 1961, the magazine was redesigned. Even the logo, which had appeared on the cover for 20 years, was remade. The Post had great hopes for this new look, which was launched on September 16, 1961. The layout was designed to look more contemporary and more visually interesting, but the initial reaction to the new look was not so good.
negative. The post received up to 10,000 letters a week, demanding a return to the earlier format. Less than a year later, the old look and logo were back, but the content continued to change. The Post became more of a current affairs news magazine.
It would investigate controversial and uncomfortable subjects and run articles on events that were still being covered by the daily news media. It reported on the celebrity... of the day, and it published authors who better reflected the changing times and tastes.
The editors now wanted to be edgy. They looked for exposés, and one of the biggest came to them in 1963. The Post ran an article accusing University of Alabama coach Bear Bryant and University of Georgia athletics director Wally Butts of fixing a football game. The two men sued Curtis Publishing and won. The Post had to pay damages of over $700,000.
The failure of the new design and the lost court case sank morale at the Post, but it was a decision in 1968 that proved truly disastrous. To reduce operating costs, a new president deliberately cut the circulation by more than half. He edited the Post toward the 3 million of its readers, who lived in counties with higher-than-average affluence and education.
The other 3.8 million subscribers were simply canceled and often lost their lives. offered a refund or a subscription to Life magazine. Then, suddenly, the Post stopped its presses.
Management had decided to suspend publication. The last issue was published on February 8, 1969. And there it would have ended, the Post's long legacy of journalism, fiction, and illustration, if an Indianapolis businessman hadn't been looking to buy a magazine. Bert Servos was running several businesses at the time, including the publication of Child Life magazine. He started negotiating with a troubled Curtis Publishing to purchase their Jack and Jill magazine, which Curtis had been publishing for a long time.
since 1938. While negotiating with Curtis, he decided to buy the entire company and revive the Saturday Evening Post. Burt and his wife Corrie became publisher and executive editor, and in 1936, he was the first to publish a book called The Saturday Evening Post. And in June of 1971, the Post resumed publication, putting Norman Rockwell himself on the first cover. Public response was enthusiastic, and circulation grew quickly.
The new Post revived the old logo and page design, which had been used up until the 1940s. The magazine even brought back some longtime Post contributors, like Pete Martin, who profiled celebrities, and William Haslitt Upson. author of the beloved Alexander Botts series. In the following years, the Post's covers reflected the magazine's reportings on the day's newsmakers and celebrities.
Bert and Corey also had a deep interest in medicine, Bert being an M.D. and Corey a doctor of medical science. Recognizing a need for health and medical information written for the lay reader, they began reporting. extensively on these topics.
Starting a trend that would be copied by other magazines, the Post provided reader-friendly articles on a broad spectrum of medical conditions. They also sponsored mobile screening units and introduced readers to the new benefits of defibrillators and lithotrips. After editing the magazine for nearly 40 years, Bert and Corey decided it was time to make way for the next generation.
We know where we've been, we know where we are, and we know where we're going in the future. Daughter Joan became the publisher and, once again, the post changed direction. It returned to being a general interest magazine, offering something for everyone.
With its deep archives going back 200 years, it has been able to provide insight on yesterday, today, and tomorrow. The magazine offers its traditional mix of feature articles, fiction, and humor, and continues to reflect our nation and its people. As we've moved into the 20th century, the Saturday Evening Post has embraced the digital era. All 200 years of the magazine have been digitized and made available online to subscribers.
You can read about civil war, battles as they took place. The coronation of Queen Victoria, Lincoln's assassination, the rise of Teddy Roosevelt, and America's passage through two world wars. The Saturday Evening Post is not part of a big media conglomerate.
We're an independent magazine and we will continue to do what we've always done, be the teller of America's story. This video is brought to you by the Saturday Evening Post Digital Archives. For only $15 a year, you can explore 200 years of American history in the Saturday Evening Post Online Archives.
Subscribe today.