Mr. Magazine

Defining a magazine, to some, is a very mercuric issue. To others, it is a clear cut definition. During some recent readings, I came across this definition from the book Magazines In The United States published in 1956. However, the definition is from 1908.

What is a magazine?  A definition from The Independent  October 1, 1908

Early in the twentieth century The Independent, at the time a powerful weekly, could say editorially: “Modern American magazines have to a large extent fallen heir to the power formerly exerted by pulpit, by crowds, parliamentary debates and daily newspapers in the molding of public opinion, the development of new issues, and dissemination of information bearing on current questions.”

The Independent editorial writer expanded his argument by specific illustrations: “The magazine represents intellectual activity in its terminal buds. Its function is to work over old plots into new stories; to rewrite biography and history in accordance with the taste of the time, to resurrect forgotten truths, to make sound information palatable, to convert abstract science into applied science, to throw a searchlight into dark corners of the earth and some spots of our civilization, to start new movements and to guide old ones, to wake up people who are asleep by sounding the burglar alarm, to twist around the heads of those who are looking backward over their shoulders; in short, to inspire, to instruct, to interest.”

Quoted from Magazines In The United States, Second Edition, by James Playsted Wood. Published by The Ronald Press Company, New York.  Page 197.