|
In the 1920s, only one American city was the center of art
and commerce: New York.
And in that city, only one magazine kept track of it all: The New Yorker. And in that magazine, only one person mattered:
founder and editor Harold Ross.
Ross was born November 6, 1892, in Aspen, Colorado,
and soon developed printer's ink in his blood. By 13, he had dropped out of
school to work at the Denver Post,
and by 25 he had worked for six other newspapers, from San Francisco to Atlanta.
During World War I, Ross's talents got him a job in Paris, editing the Army
newspaper, Stars and Stripes. His fellow staff members included drama critic Alexander Woollcott
and New York columnist Franklin P. Adams -- both of whom would go on to play roles in Ross's plans.
After the war, he settled in Manhattan, where he worked on those plans -- to
create a weekly magazine that would analyze, comment on, and play a role in
the cultural life of the city. It would not, Ross insisted, be a
magazine for "the old lady in Dubuque." It would be sophisticated and urbane -- but not
snobby. It had standards, but if a reader was witty or informed enough, they would be a member of the club.
In the depths of the winter of 1925, the first issue of The New Yorker rolled off the presses.
Despite some glitches, such as a joke that ran with the set-up and
punchline reversed ("Pop: A man who thinks he can make it in par.
Johnny: What's an optimist, Pop?") -- a error reprinted in every anniversary issue for years
-- the magazine was an instant hit. In the decades since, it has come to be
considered the gold standard of American magazines.
That respect is due almost entirely to Ross. He personally edited virtually
every word that appeared in every issue until his death in 1951, and, despite
his own poor spelling, his meticulousness for precise grammar, clarity, and
good writing attracted such notables as Vladimir Nabokov, Joyce Carol Oates, John Updike, Ernest Hemingway, John Hersey, Ann Beattie, John Cheever, Roald Dahl, Alice Munro, John O'Hara, Susan Orlean, Philip Roth, Eudora Welty, J.D. Salinger, Robert Benchley, Dorothy Parker, Roger Angell, Irwin Shaw, Woody Allen, Ring Lardner, James Thurber, Truman Capote, and (perhaps most importantly), E.B. White, whose own prose style was crucial in setting the
magazine’s voice and tone.
But the literary aspect of The New Yorker was only part of the
package. Each issue was filled with cartoons by artists like Charles Addams, Peter Arno, George Booth, Roz Chast, George Price, Saul Steinberg, Helen Hokinson, William Steig, and Thurber again. So good were (and are) the cartoons, that many
readers never get past them and are still satisfied they got their money’s
worth.
Despite Woollcott describing him as looking like "a dishonest Abe Lincoln,"
Ross's contributions to the culture of Manhattan and America are impossible to
calculate. His sensibilities shaped the ways plays were written, movies
received, and books were published, and it's almost impossible to imagine
American -- and world -- culture without him.
Suggested Sites...
|
No comments:
Post a Comment