Clay Felker
Encyclopedia
Clay Schuette Felker was an American
magazine editor and journalist who founded New York Magazine in 1968. He was known for bringing large numbers of journalists into the profession. The New York Times
wrote in 1995, "Few journalists have left a more enduring imprint on late 20th-century journalism -- an imprint that was unabashedly mimicked even as it was being mocked -- than Clay Felker."
, the son of Carl Felker, an editor of The Sporting News
, and his wife, the former Cora Tyree, the former women's editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
. He had one sibling, Charlotte. The family surname was originally von Fredrikstein.
Felker attended Duke University
, where he first became interested in journalism and edited the student newspaper, The Duke Chronicle. He left school in 1943 to join the Navy
, but returned to the school to graduate in 1951. In 1983, he founded the Editorial Board for the alumni publication Duke Magazine. Duke awarded Felker an honorary degree
in 1998, as well as the Futrell Award for Excellence in Communications and Journalism. Duke Magazine created the staff position of Clay Felker Fellow for "an aspiring journalist with unusual promise."
. He turned an article he wrote about Casey Stengel
into a 1961 book, Casey Stengel's Secret. He was on the development team for Sports Illustrated
and was features editor for Esquire
. He later worked for TIME
.
Felker gave Gloria Steinem
what she later called her first "serious assignment," regarding contraception
; he didn't like her first draft and had her re-write the article. Her resulting 1962 article about the way in which women are forced to choose between a career and marriage preceded Betty Friedan
's book The Feminine Mystique
by one year. She joined the founding staff of Felker's New York
and became politically active in the feminist movement. Felker funded the first issue of Ms. Magazine.
After losing a battle for Esquire editorship to Harold Hayes
, Felker left to join The New York Herald Tribune
in 1962. He revamped a Sunday section into New York and hired writers such as Tom Wolfe
and Jimmy Breslin
; the section became the "hottest Sunday read in town."
A long-time friend of Tom Wolfe
, Felker was one of the early proponents of New Journalism
and key to its emergence. After founding New York Magazine in 1968, one of his first features was Wolfe's coverage of Ken Kesey
and his Merry Pranksters
, a story Wolfe later expanded into his non-fiction novel
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
. New York became one of the most imitated magazines of its time, both from a design perspective and in the way it combined service and life-style articles. "He had the crass but revolutionary (revolutionary in the sense that it overthrew generations of class conceits) notion that you are what you buy. He sniffed the great consumer revolution with its social, political, and aesthetic implications. And New York Magazine became the first magazine to spell out where to get the goods (and at the best price)," wrote Michael Wolff
about Felker in New York's 35th Anniversary issue.
Felker became editor-in-chief and publisher of The Village Voice
in 1974 and resigned from New York following its hostile takeover by Rupert Murdoch
in 1976. He then bought Esquire
in 1977 but sold it in 1979.
In 1994, Felker became a lecturer at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley
, teaching a course called "How to Make a Magazine" at the Felker Magazine Center, named in his honor and of which he became director.
of what his wife described as "natural causes", following a long battle with throat cancer.
of Time, Harold Ross
of the New Yorker and Jann Wenner
of Rolling Stone in that these are all people that brought out magazines that had a new take on life in America.”
Current editor-in-chief of New York, Adam Moss
, wrote after Felker's death: “American journalism would not be what it is today without Clay Felker. He created a kind of magazine that had never been seen before, told a kind of story that had never been told."
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
magazine editor and journalist who founded New York Magazine in 1968. He was known for bringing large numbers of journalists into the profession. The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
wrote in 1995, "Few journalists have left a more enduring imprint on late 20th-century journalism -- an imprint that was unabashedly mimicked even as it was being mocked -- than Clay Felker."
Birth and education
He was born in 1925 in Webster Groves, MissouriWebster Groves, Missouri
Webster Groves is an inner-ring suburb of St. Louis, located in St. Louis County, Missouri, United States. The population was 22,995 at the 2010 census. The city is named after New England politician Daniel Webster....
, the son of Carl Felker, an editor of The Sporting News
The Sporting News
Sporting News is an American-based sports magazine. It was established in 1886, and it became the dominant American publication covering baseball — so much so that it acquired the nickname "The Bible of Baseball"...
, and his wife, the former Cora Tyree, the former women's editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch is the major city-wide newspaper in St. Louis, Missouri. Although written to serve Greater St. Louis, the Post-Dispatch is one of the largest newspapers in the Midwestern United States, and is available and read as far west as Kansas City, Missouri, as far south as...
. He had one sibling, Charlotte. The family surname was originally von Fredrikstein.
Felker attended Duke University
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
, where he first became interested in journalism and edited the student newspaper, The Duke Chronicle. He left school in 1943 to join the Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
, but returned to the school to graduate in 1951. In 1983, he founded the Editorial Board for the alumni publication Duke Magazine. Duke awarded Felker an honorary degree
Honorary degree
An honorary degree or a degree honoris causa is an academic degree for which a university has waived the usual requirements, such as matriculation, residence, study, and the passing of examinations...
in 1998, as well as the Futrell Award for Excellence in Communications and Journalism. Duke Magazine created the staff position of Clay Felker Fellow for "an aspiring journalist with unusual promise."
Career
After graduation, Felker worked as a sportswriter for Life MagazineLife (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
. He turned an article he wrote about Casey Stengel
Casey Stengel
Charles Dillon "Casey" Stengel , nicknamed "The Old Perfessor", was an American Major League Baseball outfielder and manager. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in ....
into a 1961 book, Casey Stengel's Secret. He was on the development team for Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated is an American sports media company owned by media conglomerate Time Warner. Its self titled magazine has over 3.5 million subscribers and is read by 23 million adults each week, including over 18 million men. It was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the...
and was features editor for Esquire
Esquire (magazine)
Esquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...
. He later worked for TIME
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
.
Felker gave Gloria Steinem
Gloria Steinem
Gloria Marie Steinem is an American feminist, journalist, and social and political activist who became nationally recognized as a leader of, and media spokeswoman for, the women's liberation movement in the late 1960s and 1970s...
what she later called her first "serious assignment," regarding contraception
Contraception
Contraception is the prevention of the fusion of gametes during or after sexual activity. The term contraception is a contraction of contra, which means against, and the word conception, meaning fertilization...
; he didn't like her first draft and had her re-write the article. Her resulting 1962 article about the way in which women are forced to choose between a career and marriage preceded Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan was an American writer, activist, and feminist.A leading figure in the Women's Movement in the United States, her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique is often credited with sparking the "second wave" of American feminism in the twentieth century...
's book The Feminine Mystique
The Feminine Mystique
The Feminine Mystique, published February 19, 1963, by W.W. Norton and Co., is a nonfiction book written by Betty Friedan. It is widely credited with sparking the beginning of second-wave feminism in the United States....
by one year. She joined the founding staff of Felker's New York
New York (magazine)
New York is a weekly magazine principally concerned with the life, culture, politics, and style of New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it was brasher and less polite than that magazine, and established itself as a cradle of New...
and became politically active in the feminist movement. Felker funded the first issue of Ms. Magazine.
After losing a battle for Esquire editorship to Harold Hayes
Harold Hayes
Harold Thomas Pace Hayes was a main architect of the New Journalism movement.-Biography:He was born on April 18, 1926 in North Carolina.He was an editor of Esquire magazine from 1963 to 1973...
, Felker left to join The New York Herald Tribune
New York Herald Tribune
The New York Herald Tribune was a daily newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald.Other predecessors, which had earlier merged into the New York Tribune, included the original The New Yorker newsweekly , and the Whig Party's Log Cabin.The paper was home to...
in 1962. He revamped a Sunday section into New York and hired writers such as Tom Wolfe
Tom Wolfe
Thomas Kennerly "Tom" Wolfe, Jr. is a best-selling American author and journalist. He is one of the founders of the New Journalism movement of the 1960s and 1970s.-Early life and education:...
and Jimmy Breslin
Jimmy Breslin
Jimmy Breslin is an American journalist and author. He currently writes a column for the New York Daily News' Sunday edition. He has written numerous novels, and columns of his have appeared regularly in various newspapers in his hometown of New York City...
; the section became the "hottest Sunday read in town."
A long-time friend of Tom Wolfe
Tom Wolfe
Thomas Kennerly "Tom" Wolfe, Jr. is a best-selling American author and journalist. He is one of the founders of the New Journalism movement of the 1960s and 1970s.-Early life and education:...
, Felker was one of the early proponents of New Journalism
New Journalism
New Journalism was a style of 1960s and 1970s news writing and journalism which used literary techniques deemed unconventional at the time. The term was codified with its current meaning by Tom Wolfe in a 1973 collection of journalism articles he published as The New Journalism, which included...
and key to its emergence. After founding New York Magazine in 1968, one of his first features was Wolfe's coverage of Ken Kesey
Ken Kesey
Kenneth Elton "Ken" Kesey was an American author, best known for his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , and as a counter-cultural figure who considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. "I was too young to be a beatnik, and too old to be a...
and his Merry Pranksters
Merry Pranksters
The Merry Pranksters were a group of people who formed around American author Ken Kesey in 1964 and sometimes lived communally at his homes in California and Oregon...
, a story Wolfe later expanded into his non-fiction novel
Non-fiction novel
The non-fiction novel is a literary genre which, broadly speaking, depicts real historical figures and actual events narrated woven together with fictitious allegations and using the storytelling techniques of fiction. The non-fiction novel is an otherwise loosely-defined and flexible genre...
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is a work of literary journalism by Tom Wolfe, published in 1968. Using techniques from the genre of hysterical realism and pioneering new journalism, the "nonfiction novel" tells the story of Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters...
. New York became one of the most imitated magazines of its time, both from a design perspective and in the way it combined service and life-style articles. "He had the crass but revolutionary (revolutionary in the sense that it overthrew generations of class conceits) notion that you are what you buy. He sniffed the great consumer revolution with its social, political, and aesthetic implications. And New York Magazine became the first magazine to spell out where to get the goods (and at the best price)," wrote Michael Wolff
Michael Wolff (journalist)
Michael Wolff is an American author, essayist, and journalist. He currently writes a regular column for Vanity Fair magazine. He is well known for his acerbic, combative, and humorous style...
about Felker in New York's 35th Anniversary issue.
Felker became editor-in-chief and publisher of The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
in 1974 and resigned from New York following its hostile takeover by Rupert Murdoch
Rupert Murdoch
Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG is an Australian-American business magnate. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of , the world's second-largest media conglomerate....
in 1976. He then bought Esquire
Esquire (magazine)
Esquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...
in 1977 but sold it in 1979.
In 1994, Felker became a lecturer at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
, teaching a course called "How to Make a Magazine" at the Felker Magazine Center, named in his honor and of which he became director.
Marriages
Felker was married three times:- Leslie Blatt, a fellow Duke undergraduate, in 1949; they later divorced.
- Pamela Tiffin, an actress and fashion model, whom he married in 1962 and divorced in 1969.
- Gail SheehyGail SheehyGail Sheehy is an American writer and lecturer, most notable for her books on life and the life cycle. She is also a contributor to Vanity Fair magazine....
, the writer, in 1984. By this marriage he had a daughter, Mohm Sheehy, whom Sheehy adopted from CambodiaCambodiaCambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
, and a stepdaughter, Maura Sheehy Moss.
Death
He died on July 1, 2008 in ManhattanManhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
of what his wife described as "natural causes", following a long battle with throat cancer.
Tributes
Tom Wolfe said: “He ranks with Henry LuceHenry Luce
Henry Robinson Luce was an influential American publisher. He launched and closely supervised a stable of magazines that transformed journalism and the reading habits of upscale Americans...
of Time, Harold Ross
Harold Ross
Harold Wallace Ross was an American journalist and founder of The New Yorker magazine, which he edited from the magazine's inception in 1925 to his death....
of the New Yorker and Jann Wenner
Jann Wenner
Jann Simon Wenner is the co-founder and publisher of the music and politics biweekly Rolling Stone, as well as the owner of Men's Journal and Us Weekly magazines.-Childhood:...
of Rolling Stone in that these are all people that brought out magazines that had a new take on life in America.”
Current editor-in-chief of New York, Adam Moss
Adam Moss
Adam Moss is an American magazine and newspaper editor. Since 2004, he has been the editor-in-chief of New York magazine. Under his editorship, New York has repeatedly been recognized for excellence, notably winning five National Magazine Awards in 2007...
, wrote after Felker's death: “American journalism would not be what it is today without Clay Felker. He created a kind of magazine that had never been seen before, told a kind of story that had never been told."