Dictionary of Literary Biography: American Magazine Journalists, 1900-60 - First Series v. 91

By the beginning of the 20th-century, mass production had converted the economics of the nation from scarcity to abundance. National advertising gained importance, and the only available medium was the magazine--not the old-style literary magazine, but a new manifestation. Publishers came to see subscibers less as readers and more as consumers as magazines grew to become a part of the marketing process. This evolution -- orchestrated and implemented by the 37 writers, editors and publishers profiled in this DLB volume -- was also sparked by increasing affluence, higher education levels, and increasing amounts of leisure time. By the 1960s the transformation was complete; magazines, like almost every other facet of American life, were operated in a more impersonal corporate manner.

37 entries include: Margaret Anderson, William F. Bigelow, Cyrus H.K. Curtis, Gilbert H. Grosvenor, Joseph Palmer Knapp, Henry R. Luce, Conde Nast, Walter Hines Page, A. Philip Randolph, Ellery Sedgwick, Oswald Garrison Villard.