The Saturday Evening Post
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- Note: There have been other minor publications also called the Saturday Evening Post; several were/are local British newspapers.
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The Saturday Evening Post was a weekly magazine published in the United States from August 4, 1821 to February 8, 1969. For much of that period, it was published by Curtis Publishing Co. Curtis claimed to have been founded by Benjamin Franklin, though the magazine's first issue was published more than 30 years after Franklin's death.
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Description and History
Its contents consisted primarily of articles on current events and pieces of well-written popular fiction in mainstream genres, at least one of which was usually run in serial format over several issues. These were supplemented by single-panel cartoons, small human-interest, humorous or poetic filler pieces (often reader-contributed), editorials, a letter column, and quality interior illustrations of both stories and advertising plus illustrated covers. Artist Norman Rockwell did covers and illustrations for the magazine from 1916 through 1963, and gained his public fame by these works; several of these are among his critically best-acclaimed works. Fiction authors included the likes of John Steinbeck, William Saroyan, John P. Marquand, Paul Gallico, C. S. Forester, Hammond Innes, Sax Rohmer, Louis L'Amour and Ray Bradbury.
Aside from the decline of most general-interest magazines in the late 1950s and 1960s, which is generally attributed to the rise of television, the Post's increased turning to cheaper photographic covers and advertisements, the loss of interest in its style of fiction during the advent of American counterculture, not to mention the rise of more libertine publications such as Playboy as high-status and high-paying venues for "name" authors, and its conservative editorial bent, all contributed to the demise of the original Post, which was finalized by its being ordered to pay $360,000, then a quite-considerable sum, in damages for libel after being sued for an article implying that football coaches Paul "Bear" Bryant and Wally Butts had conspired to "fix" a game between the University of Alabama and the University of Georgia.
In the 1980s, it was revived as a monthly (or even less frequent) publication specializing in nostalgia. The magazine is currently published six times a year by an organization called the "Benjamin Franklin Literary and Medical Society", and concentrates on articles involving health issues, especially in the elderly.
See also
Similar Magazines
External links
- Saturday Evening Post website (http://www.satevepost.org)