Collier's Weekly
Encyclopedia
Collier's Weekly was an American
magazine
founded by Peter Fenelon Collier
and published from 1888 to 1957. With the passage of decades, the title was shortened to Collier's.
As a result of Peter Collier's pioneering investigative journalism
, Collier's Weekly established a reputation as a proponent of social reform. When attempts by various companies to sue Collier ended in failure, other magazines became involved in what Theodore Roosevelt
described as "muckraking
journalism." In 2010, the Collier's trademark was purchased by JTE Multimedia
, which plans to resurrect the brand.
at age 17. Although he went to a seminary to become a priest, he instead started work as a salesman for P.J. Kennedy, publisher of books for the Roman Catholic market. When Collier wanted to boost sales by offering books on a subscription plan, it led to a disagreement with Kennedy, so Collier left to start his own subscription service. P.F. Collier & Son began in 1875, expanding into the largest subscription house in America with sales of 30 million books during the 1900-1910 decade.
In April 1888, Collier's Once a Week was launched as a magazine of "fiction, fact, sensation, wit, humor, news". By 1892, with a circulation climbing past the 250,000 mark, Collier's Once a Week was one of the largest selling magazines in the United States. The name was changed to Collier's Weekly: An Illustrated Journal in 1895. With an emphasis on news, the magazine became a leading exponent of the halftone news picture. To fully exploit the new technology, Peter Collier recruited James H. Hare, one of the pioneers of photojournalism. Collier's only son, Robert J. Collier became a full partner in 1898. By 1914, it was known as Collier's: The National Weekly.
Peter Collier died in 1909, and Robert Collier died in 1918, leaving a will that turned the magazine over to three of his friends: Samuel Dunn
, Harry Payne Whitney
and Francis Patrick Garvan.
The magazine was sold in 1919 to the Crowell Publishing Company (which in 1939 was renamed as Crowell-Collier Publishing Company).
Printing of the magazine was done at the Crowell-Collier printing plant on West Main Street in Springfield, Ohio
. The factory complex, which is still standing, was built between 1899 and 1946, and incorporates seven buildings that together have more than 846000 square feet (78,596 m²) — 20 acres (80,937.2 m²) — of floor space.
became editor of Collier's Weekly in 1903, he attracted many leading writers. In May 1906, he commissioned Jack London
to cover the San Francisco earthquake
, a report accompanied by 16 pages of pictures. Under Hapgood's guidance, Collier's Weekly began publishing the work of investigative journalists such as Samuel Hopkins Adams
, Ray Stannard Baker
, C.P. Connolly and Ida Tarbell. Hapgood's approach had great impact, resulting in such changes as the reform of the child labor laws, slum clearance and women's suffrage
. In April 1905, an article by Upton Sinclair
, "Is Chicago Meat Clean?", persuaded the Senate to pass the 1906 Meat Inspection Act
.
Starting October 7, 1905, Adams startled readers with "The Great American Fraud," an 11-part Collier's series. Analyzing the contents of popular patent medicine
s, Adams pointed out that the companies producing these medicines were making false claims about their products and some were health hazards. Hapgood launched the series with the following editorial:
"The Great American Fraud" had a powerful impact and led to the first Pure Food and Drug Act
(1906). The entire series was reprinted by the American Medical Association in a book, The Great American Fraud, which sold 500,000 copies at 50 cents each.
Hapgood had a huge influence on public opinion, and between 1909 and 1912, he succeeded in doubling the circulation of Collier's from a half million to a million. When he moved on to Harper's Weekly
in 1912, he was replaced as editor for the next couple years by Robert J. Collier, the son of the founder.
Writers such as Martha Gellhorn
and Ernest Hemingway
, who reported on the Spanish Civil War
, helped boost the circulation. Winston Churchill
, who wrote an account of the First World War
, was a regular contributor during the 1930s, but his series of articles ended in 1938 when he became a minister
in the British
government. Other writers included Willa Cather
, Zane Grey
, Ring Lardner
, Sinclair Lewis
, E. Phillips Oppenheim
, Carl Fick
, Henry L. Jackson, Cornelius Ryan
, J. D. Salinger
, Ruth Burr Sanborn, Kurt Vonnegut
, Albert Payson Terhune
, Walter Tevis
, Rob Wagner and H. C. Witwer
. Arthur H. Vandenberg
, later to become a prominent Senator
, had a brief stint as a Collier's editor during the 1900s.
led to the creation of The Collier Hour
"The Magazine of the Air," broadcast on the NBC Blue Network from 1927 to 1932. It was radio's first major dramatic anthology series, adapting stories and serials from Collier's. Airing on the Wednesday before weekly publication, it later switched to Sundays to avoid spoilers with stories being aired simultaneously with the magazine.
In 1929, in addition to the dramatizations, it offered music, news, sports and comedy.
Serializing novels during the late 1920s, Collier's Weekly sometimes simultaneously ran two ten-part novels, and non-fiction was also serialized. Between 1913 and 1949, Sax Rohmer's
Fu Manchu
serials, illustrated by Joseph Clement Coll
and others, were hugely popular. The first three Fu Manchu novels by Rohmer were actually compilations of 29 short stories that Rohmer wrote for Collier’s.
The Mask of Fu Manchu, which was adapted into a 1932 film and a 1951 Wally Wood
comic book, was first published as a 12-part Collier's serial, running from May 7 to July 23, 1932. The May 7 issue displayed a memorable cover illustration by famed maskmaker Władysław T. Benda
, and his mask design for that cover was repeated by many other illustrators in subsequent adaptations and reprints.
, Howard Chandler Christy
, Harrison Fisher
, James Montgomery Flagg
, Robert Fawcett
, Denver Gillen, Percy Leason, J. C. Leyendecker, Paul Martin
, John Alan Maxwell
, John Cullen Murphy
, Frederic Remington
, John Sloan, Charles Henry "Bill" Sykes and Frederic Dorr Steele
.
The magazine's roster of top cartoonists included Charles Addams
, Carl Anderson
, Stan and Jan Berenstain
, Sam Berman
, Sam Cobean
, A. B. Frost
, Dave Gerard
, Vernon Grant, Jay Irving
, Crockett Johnson
, E. W. Kemble
, Hank Ketcham
, George Lichty
, David Low, Bill Mauldin
, Virgil Partch, Mischa Richter
, William Steig
, Richard Taylor, Gluyas Williams
, Gahan Wilson
and Rowland B. Wilson.
Kate Osann
's Tizzy cartoons first appeared in Collier's. The redheaded Tizzy was a teenage American girl who wore horn-rimmed glasses with triangular lenses. Tizzy was syndicated by NEA
after Collier's folded. The cartoons were in color in Collier's but black-and-white in syndication and paperback reprints.
In 1903, Charles Dana Gibson
signed a $100,000 contract, agreeing to deliver 100 pictures (at $1000 each) during the next four years. From 1904 to 1910, Maxfield Parrish
was under exclusive contract to Collier's, which published his famed Arabian Nights paintings in 1906-07. After WWII, Harry Devlin
became the top editorial cartoonist at Collier's, one of the few publications then displaying editorial cartoons in full color. During the 1940s, Gurney Williams was the cartoon editor for Collier's, American Magazine and Woman's Home Companion, paying $40 to $150 for each cartoon. From a staggering stack of some 2000 submissions each week, Williams made a weekly selection of 30 to 50 cartoons, lamenting:
Joseph Barbera
, before he found fame in animation, had several cartoons published in Collier's in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
, with William L. Chenery as the editor (1941), Collier's readership reached 2.5 million. In the October 14, 1944, issue, the magazine published one of the first articles about concentration camps, Jan Karski
's "Polish Death Camp," a harrowing account of his visit to Belzec
. Collier's carried that excerpt from Karski's Story of a Secret State a month-and-a-half prior to the book's publication by Houghton Mifflin
. A Book of the Month Club
selection, Karski's book became a bestseller, with 400,000 copies sold in 1944-45. The Collier's selection was reprinted in Robert H. Abzug's America Views the Holocaust: 1933-1945 (Palgrave, 1999).
Collier's had a circulation of 2,846,052 when Walter Davenport took over as editor in 1946, but the magazine began to lose readers during the post-World War II years. Collier's published long awaited images from the 200-inch (5.08 m) Hale telescope
's first light in 1949. In the early 1950s, Collier's ran a groundbreaking series of articles about space flight, Man Will Conquer Space Soon!
which prompted the general public to seriously consider the possibility of a trip to the moon. In 1951 an entire issue described the events and outcome of a hypothetical war between the United States and the Soviet Union, entitled Preview of the War We Do Not Want
. Collier's changed from a weekly to a biweekly in August 1953, but it continued to lose money. The magazine ceased publication with the issue dated January 4, 1957.
A huge history and collection of material from the magazine appeared with the publication of the 558-page A Cavalcade of Collier's, edited by Kenneth McArdle (Barnes, 1959).
for $750,000 from its original owners, the Tribune Publishing Company of Oakland, which had founded the station three decades earlier. Eventually, Crowell-Collier owned three Top 40 stations: KFWB (Los Angeles), KDWB (Minneapolis) and KEWB
(Oakland-San Francisco). Crowell-Collier sold KEWB to Metromedia Radio
in April 1966 for nearly $2.5 million, and the station then became KNEW.
Hollywood's KFWB had been the top AM radio station in Southern California during the late 1950s and early 60's, but it was late catching up to current music trends such as the British Invasion and lost market share to other stations such as KHJ which switched formats to rock and roll. KFWB was sold to Westinghouse
in 1966 for what was then a record price for a radio station -$10 million.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
founded by Peter Fenelon Collier
Peter Fenelon Collier
Peter Fenelon Collier was the founder of the publishing company P.F. Collier & Son, and in 1888 founded Collier's Weekly. P.F...
and published from 1888 to 1957. With the passage of decades, the title was shortened to Collier's.
As a result of Peter Collier's pioneering investigative journalism
Investigative journalism
Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, often involving crime, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years researching and preparing a report. Investigative journalism...
, Collier's Weekly established a reputation as a proponent of social reform. When attempts by various companies to sue Collier ended in failure, other magazines became involved in what Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
described as "muckraking
Muckraker
The term muckraker is closely associated with reform-oriented journalists who wrote largely for popular magazines, continued a tradition of investigative journalism reporting, and emerged in the United States after 1900 and continued to be influential until World War I, when through a combination...
journalism." In 2010, the Collier's trademark was purchased by JTE Multimedia
JTE Multimedia
JTE Multimedia is a publishing firm in Berwyn, Pennsylvania. It currently publishes Hospital Practice, Postgraduate Medicine and The Physician and Sportsmedicine, while it has plans to revive the defunct Collier's Weekly and Saturday Review....
, which plans to resurrect the brand.
History
Irish immigrant Peter F. Collier (1849–1909) left IrelandIreland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
at age 17. Although he went to a seminary to become a priest, he instead started work as a salesman for P.J. Kennedy, publisher of books for the Roman Catholic market. When Collier wanted to boost sales by offering books on a subscription plan, it led to a disagreement with Kennedy, so Collier left to start his own subscription service. P.F. Collier & Son began in 1875, expanding into the largest subscription house in America with sales of 30 million books during the 1900-1910 decade.
In April 1888, Collier's Once a Week was launched as a magazine of "fiction, fact, sensation, wit, humor, news". By 1892, with a circulation climbing past the 250,000 mark, Collier's Once a Week was one of the largest selling magazines in the United States. The name was changed to Collier's Weekly: An Illustrated Journal in 1895. With an emphasis on news, the magazine became a leading exponent of the halftone news picture. To fully exploit the new technology, Peter Collier recruited James H. Hare, one of the pioneers of photojournalism. Collier's only son, Robert J. Collier became a full partner in 1898. By 1914, it was known as Collier's: The National Weekly.
Peter Collier died in 1909, and Robert Collier died in 1918, leaving a will that turned the magazine over to three of his friends: Samuel Dunn
Samuel Dunn
Samuel Dunn may refer to:* Samuel Orace Dunn , American transportation specialist* Samuel Dunn , Free Church Methodist minister and religious journalist* Sam Dunn , Canadian musician and film maker...
, Harry Payne Whitney
Harry Payne Whitney
Harry Payne Whitney was an American businessman, thoroughbred horsebreeder, and member of the prominent Whitney family.- Early years :...
and Francis Patrick Garvan.
The magazine was sold in 1919 to the Crowell Publishing Company (which in 1939 was renamed as Crowell-Collier Publishing Company).
Printing of the magazine was done at the Crowell-Collier printing plant on West Main Street in Springfield, Ohio
Springfield, Ohio
Springfield is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Clark County. The municipality is located in southwestern Ohio and is situated on the Mad River, Buck Creek and Beaver Creek, approximately west of Columbus and northeast of Dayton. Springfield is home to Wittenberg...
. The factory complex, which is still standing, was built between 1899 and 1946, and incorporates seven buildings that together have more than 846000 square feet (78,596 m²) — 20 acres (80,937.2 m²) — of floor space.
Editors and writers
When Norman HapgoodNorman Hapgood
Norman Hapgood was an American writer, journalist, editor, and critic, born in Chicago, Illinois. He graduated from Harvard in 1890 and from the law school there in 1893, then chose to become a writer...
became editor of Collier's Weekly in 1903, he attracted many leading writers. In May 1906, he commissioned Jack London
Jack London
John Griffith "Jack" London was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone...
to cover the San Francisco earthquake
1906 San Francisco earthquake
The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major earthquake that struck San Francisco, California, and the coast of Northern California at 5:12 a.m. on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. The most widely accepted estimate for the magnitude of the earthquake is a moment magnitude of 7.9; however, other...
, a report accompanied by 16 pages of pictures. Under Hapgood's guidance, Collier's Weekly began publishing the work of investigative journalists such as Samuel Hopkins Adams
Samuel Hopkins Adams
Samuel Hopkins Adams was an American writer, best known for his investigative journalism.-Biography:Adams was born in Dunkirk, New York...
, Ray Stannard Baker
Ray Stannard Baker
Ray Stannard Baker , also known by his pen name David Grayson, was an American journalist and author born in Lansing, Michigan...
, C.P. Connolly and Ida Tarbell. Hapgood's approach had great impact, resulting in such changes as the reform of the child labor laws, slum clearance and women's suffrage
Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
. In April 1905, an article by Upton Sinclair
Upton Sinclair
Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. , was an American author who wrote close to one hundred books in many genres. He achieved popularity in the first half of the twentieth century, acquiring particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle . It exposed conditions in the U.S...
, "Is Chicago Meat Clean?", persuaded the Senate to pass the 1906 Meat Inspection Act
Meat Inspection Act
The Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906 was a United States Congress Act that worked to prevent adulterated or misbranded meat and meat products from being sold as food and to ensure that meat and meat products are slaughtered and processed under sanitary conditions. These requirements also apply...
.
Starting October 7, 1905, Adams startled readers with "The Great American Fraud," an 11-part Collier's series. Analyzing the contents of popular patent medicine
Patent medicine
Patent medicine refers to medical compounds of questionable effectiveness sold under a variety of names and labels. The term "patent medicine" is somewhat of a misnomer because, in most cases, although many of the products were trademarked, they were never patented...
s, Adams pointed out that the companies producing these medicines were making false claims about their products and some were health hazards. Hapgood launched the series with the following editorial:
- In the present number we print the first article in "The Great American Fraud" series, which is to describe thoroughly the ways and methods, as well as the evils and dangers, of the patent medicine business. This article is but the opening gun of the campaign, and is largely introductory in character, but it will give the reader a good idea of what is to come when Mr. Adams gets down to peculiarities. The next article, to appear two weeks hence, will treat of "Peruna and the 'Bracers'," that is, of those concoctions which are advertised and sold as medicines, but which in reality are practically cocktails.
- Since these articles on patent medicine frauds were announced in Collier's some time ago, most of the makers of alcoholic and opiated medicines have been running to cover, and even the Government has been awakened to a sense of responsibility. A few weeks ago the Commissioner of Internal Revenue issued an order to his Collectors, ordering them to exact a special tax from the manufacturer of every compound composed of distilled spirits, "even though drugs have been added thereto." The list of "tonics," "blood purifiers" and "cures" that will come under this head has not yet been published by the Treasury Department, but it is bound to include a good many of the beverages which, up to the present time, have been soothing the consciences while stimulating the palates of the temperance folk. The next official move will doubtless be against the opium-sellers; but these have likewise taken fright, and several of the most notorious "consumption cures" no longer include opium or hasheesh in their concoction.
"The Great American Fraud" had a powerful impact and led to the first Pure Food and Drug Act
Pure Food and Drug Act
The Pure Food and Drug Act of June 30, 1906, is a United States federal law that provided federal inspection of meat products and forbade the manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated food products and poisonous patent medicines...
(1906). The entire series was reprinted by the American Medical Association in a book, The Great American Fraud, which sold 500,000 copies at 50 cents each.
Hapgood had a huge influence on public opinion, and between 1909 and 1912, he succeeded in doubling the circulation of Collier's from a half million to a million. When he moved on to Harper's Weekly
Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...
in 1912, he was replaced as editor for the next couple years by Robert J. Collier, the son of the founder.
Writers such as Martha Gellhorn
Martha Gellhorn
Martha Gellhorn was an American novelist, travel writer and journalist, considered by The London Daily Telegraph amongst others to be one of the greatest war correspondents of the 20th century. She reported on virtually every major world conflict that took place during her 60-year career...
and Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
, who reported on the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
, helped boost the circulation. Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
, who wrote an account of the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, was a regular contributor during the 1930s, but his series of articles ended in 1938 when he became a minister
Minister (government)
A minister is a politician who holds significant public office in a national or regional government. Senior ministers are members of the cabinet....
in the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
government. Other writers included Willa Cather
Willa Cather
Willa Seibert Cather was an American author who achieved recognition for her novels of frontier life on the Great Plains, in works such as O Pioneers!, My Ántonia, and The Song of the Lark. In 1923 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours , a novel set during World War I...
, Zane Grey
Zane Grey
Zane Grey was an American author best known for his popular adventure novels and stories that presented an idealized image of the Old West. Riders of the Purple Sage was his bestselling book. In addition to the success of his printed works, they later had second lives and continuing influence...
, Ring Lardner
Ring Lardner
Ringgold Wilmer Lardner was an American sports columnist and short story writer best known for his satirical takes on the sports world, marriage, and the theatre.-Personal life:...
, Sinclair Lewis
Sinclair Lewis
Harry Sinclair Lewis was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of...
, E. Phillips Oppenheim
E. Phillips Oppenheim
Edward Phillips Oppenheim , was an English novelist, in his lifetime a major and successful writer of genre fiction including thrillers.-Life:...
, Carl Fick
Carl Fick
Carl Fick is the director of several documentaries including the Cannes award-winning A Day in the Death of Donny B and the author of two novels, The Danziger Transcript and A Disturbance in Paris. The Danziger Transcript was published in hardcover by Putnam in 1971, and in mass market paperback...
, Henry L. Jackson, Cornelius Ryan
Cornelius Ryan
Cornelius Ryan, was an Irish journalist and author mainly known for his writings on popular military history, especially his World War II books: The Longest Day: June 6, 1944 D-Day , The Last Battle , and A Bridge Too Far .-Early life:Ryan was born in Dublin and educated at Synge Street CBS,...
, J. D. Salinger
J. D. Salinger
Jerome David Salinger was an American author, best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, as well as his reclusive nature. His last original published work was in 1965; he gave his last interview in 1980....
, Ruth Burr Sanborn, Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a 20th century American writer. His works such as Cat's Cradle , Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions blend satire, gallows humor and science fiction. He was known for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association.-Early...
, Albert Payson Terhune
Albert Payson Terhune
Albert Payson Terhune was an American author, dog breeder, and journalist. The public knows him best for his novels relating the adventures of his beloved collies and as a breeder of collies at his Sunnybank Kennels, the lines of which still exist in today's Rough Collies.-Biography:Albert Payson...
, Walter Tevis
Walter Tevis
Walter Stone Tevis was an American novelist and short story writer. Three of his six novels were adapted into major films: The Hustler, The Color of Money and The Man Who Fell to Earth...
, Rob Wagner and H. C. Witwer
H. C. Witwer
Harry Charles Witwer , more commonly known as H. C. Witwer, was an American short story author. Some 60 comedy film shorts were based on his works, most from the mid 1920s to 1930, the year after Witwer's death....
. Arthur H. Vandenberg
Arthur H. Vandenberg
Arthur Hendrick Vandenberg was a Republican Senator from the U.S. state of Michigan who participated in the creation of the United Nations.-Early life and family:...
, later to become a prominent Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
, had a brief stint as a Collier's editor during the 1900s.
Radio
Collier's circulation battle with The Saturday Evening PostThe Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
led to the creation of The Collier Hour
The Collier Hour
The Collier Hour, broadcast on the NBC Blue Network from 1927 to 1932, was radio's first major dramatic anthology, aka Collier's Radio Hour. It offered adaptations of stories and serials from Collier's in a calculated move to increase subscriptions and compete with The Saturday Evening Post...
"The Magazine of the Air," broadcast on the NBC Blue Network from 1927 to 1932. It was radio's first major dramatic anthology series, adapting stories and serials from Collier's. Airing on the Wednesday before weekly publication, it later switched to Sundays to avoid spoilers with stories being aired simultaneously with the magazine.
In 1929, in addition to the dramatizations, it offered music, news, sports and comedy.
Serials
Sax Rohmer
Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward , better known as Sax Rohmer, was a prolific English novelist. He is best remembered for his series of novels featuring the master criminal Dr...
Fu Manchu
Fu Manchu
Dr. Fu Manchu is a fictional character introduced in a series of novels by British author Sax Rohmer during the first half of the 20th century...
serials, illustrated by Joseph Clement Coll
Joseph Clement Coll
Joseph Clement Coll was an American book and newspaper illustrator. He was known for his pen and ink story illustrations that were used to illustrate adventure stories such as Arthur Conan Doyle's The White Company.-Illustration career:...
and others, were hugely popular. The first three Fu Manchu novels by Rohmer were actually compilations of 29 short stories that Rohmer wrote for Collier’s.
The Mask of Fu Manchu, which was adapted into a 1932 film and a 1951 Wally Wood
Wally Wood
Wallace Allan Wood was an American comic book writer, artist and independent publisher, best known for his work in EC Comics and Mad. He was one of Mads founding cartoonists in 1952. Although much of his early professional artwork is signed Wallace Wood, he became known as Wally Wood, a name he...
comic book, was first published as a 12-part Collier's serial, running from May 7 to July 23, 1932. The May 7 issue displayed a memorable cover illustration by famed maskmaker Władysław T. Benda
Władysław T. Benda
Władysław Teodor "W.T." Benda was a Polish-American painter, illustrator, and designer....
, and his mask design for that cover was repeated by many other illustrators in subsequent adaptations and reprints.
Illustrators and cartoonists
Leading illustrators contributed to Collier's, including Chesley BonestellChesley Bonestell
Chesley Bonestell was an American painter, designer and illustrator. His paintings were a major influence on science fiction art and illustration, and he helped inspire the American space program...
, Howard Chandler Christy
Howard Chandler Christy
Howard Chandler Christy was an American artist and illustrator famous for the "Christy Girl", similar to a "Gibson Girl".He was born in Morgan County and attended early school in Duncan Falls, Ohio...
, Harrison Fisher
Harrison Fisher
Harrison Fisher was an American illustrator.Fisher was born in Brooklyn, New York City and began to draw at an early age. Both his father and his grandfather were artists. Fisher spent much of his youth in San Francisco, and studied at the San Francisco Art Association...
, James Montgomery Flagg
James Montgomery Flagg
James Montgomery Flagg was an American artist and illustrator. He worked in media ranging from fine art painting to cartooning, but is best remembered for his political posters....
, Robert Fawcett
Robert Fawcett
Robert Fawcett trained as a fine artist but achieved fame as an illustrator of books and magazines.Born in England, he grew up in Canada and later in New York. His father, an amateur artist, encouraged Robert's interest in art. While in Canada, he was apprenticed to an engraver...
, Denver Gillen, Percy Leason, J. C. Leyendecker, Paul Martin
Paul Martin (illustrator)
Paul Martin was a graphic artist and illustrator.-Background:...
, John Alan Maxwell
John Alan Maxwell
John Alan Maxwell was an American artist known primarily for his book and magazine illustrations, as well as historical paintings...
, John Cullen Murphy
John Cullen Murphy
John Cullen Murphy was an American illustrator best known for his three decades of work on the Prince Valiant comic strip....
, Frederic Remington
Frederic Remington
Frederic Sackrider Remington was an American painter, illustrator, sculptor, and writer who specialized in depictions of the Old American West, specifically concentrating on the last quarter of the 19th century American West and images of cowboys, American Indians, and the U. S...
, John Sloan, Charles Henry "Bill" Sykes and Frederic Dorr Steele
Frederic Dorr Steele
Frederic Dorr Steele is an American illustrator best known for his work on the Sherlock Holmes stories.Steele, a descendant of William Bradford , was born on 6 August 1873 at Eagle Mills, Marquette, Michigan, and studied at the National Academy of Design and elsewhere in New York City...
.
The magazine's roster of top cartoonists included Charles Addams
Charles Addams
Charles "Chas" Samuel Addams was an American cartoonist known for his particularly black humor and macabre characters...
, Carl Anderson
Carl Thomas Anderson
Carl Thomas Anderson was an American cartoonist best remembered for his comic strip Henry. Readers followed the pantomime adventures of the mute, bald-headed Henry in strips which he signed with his familiar signature displaying an enlarged "S": Carl AnderSon.-Background:Carl Thomas Anderson was...
, Stan and Jan Berenstain
Stan and Jan Berenstain
Stan and Jan Berenstain were American writers and illustrators best known for creating the children's book series the Berenstain Bears....
, Sam Berman
Sam Berman
Sam Berman was a leading caricaturist of the 1940s and 1950s.Berman was in high school when he began drawing cartoons for the Hartford Courant. He went to New York to study art and then landed a position as a staff cartoonist for the Newark Star Eagle...
, Sam Cobean
Sam Cobean
Sam Cobean was a cartoonist, especially known for his work in The New Yorker in the 1940s and 1950s.His book of cartoons, The Naked Eye, has been published around the world. Likewise, the book published after his death, The Cartoons of Cobean has enjoyed worldwide popularity since its publication...
, A. B. Frost
A. B. Frost
Arthur Burdett Frost , was an early American illustrator, graphic artist and comics writer. He was also well known as a painter. Frost's work is well known for its dynamic representation of motion and sequence. Frost is considered one of the great illustrators in the "Golden Age of American...
, Dave Gerard
Dave Gerard
Dave Gerard was a prolific magazine humor cartoonist from the 1940s through the 1960s, most notably for Collier's Weekly, Country Gentleman, and The Saturday Evening Post....
, Vernon Grant, Jay Irving
Jay Irving
Irving Joel Rafsky , known as Jay Irving, was a cartoonist notable for his syndicated strip Pottsy about a good-natured, dutiful New York police officer, Pottsy, who sometimes came in conflict with his sergeant....
, Crockett Johnson
Crockett Johnson
Crockett Johnson was the pen name of cartoonist and children's book illustrator David Johnson Leisk...
, E. W. Kemble
E. W. Kemble
Edward Winsor Kemble was an American cartoonist and illustrator. Born in Sacramento, California, his family moved to New York when he was young....
, Hank Ketcham
Hank Ketcham
Henry King "Hank" Ketcham was an American cartoonist who created the Dennis the Menace comic strip, writing and drawing it from 1951 to 1994, when he retired from drawing the daily page and took up painting full time in his studio at his home. He received the Reuben Award for the strip in 1953...
, George Lichty
George Lichty
George Lichty was an American cartoonist, creator of the daily and Sunday cartoon series Grin and Bear It. His work was signed Lichty and often ran without mention of his first name....
, David Low, Bill Mauldin
Bill Mauldin
William Henry "Bill" Mauldin was a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist from the United States...
, Virgil Partch, Mischa Richter
Mischa Richter
Mischa Richter was an American cartoonist best known for his numerous cartoons published in The New Yorker over decades....
, William Steig
William Steig
William Steig was a prolific American cartoonist, sculptor and, later in life, an author of popular children's literature...
, Richard Taylor, Gluyas Williams
Gluyas Williams
Gluyas Williams was an American cartoonist, notable for his contributions to The New Yorker and other major magazines.Born in San Francisco, California, he graduated from Harvard in 1911...
, Gahan Wilson
Gahan Wilson
Gahan Wilson is an American author, cartoonist and illustrator known for his cartoons depicting horror-fantasy situations...
and Rowland B. Wilson.
Kate Osann
Kate Osann
-Biography:Osann was born in St. Louis, Missouri, but grew up in New York City. She graduated from Hunter College.-Career:Early in her career, Osann worked on ads and illustrating for such magazines as Collier's Weekly and Saturday Evening Post. Osann was a regular contributor to Collier's, where...
's Tizzy cartoons first appeared in Collier's. The redheaded Tizzy was a teenage American girl who wore horn-rimmed glasses with triangular lenses. Tizzy was syndicated by NEA
United Media
United Media is a large editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States, owned by The E.W. Scripps Company. It syndicates 150 comics and editorial columns worldwide. Its core business is the United Feature Syndicate and the Newspaper Enterprise Association...
after Collier's folded. The cartoons were in color in Collier's but black-and-white in syndication and paperback reprints.
In 1903, Charles Dana Gibson
Charles Dana Gibson
Charles Dana Gibson was an American graphic artist, best known for his creation of the Gibson Girl, an iconic representation of the beautiful and independent American woman at the turn of the 20th century....
signed a $100,000 contract, agreeing to deliver 100 pictures (at $1000 each) during the next four years. From 1904 to 1910, Maxfield Parrish
Maxfield Parrish
Maxfield Parrish was an American painter and illustrator active in the first half of the twentieth century. He is known for his distinctive saturated hues and idealized neo-classical imagery.-Life:...
was under exclusive contract to Collier's, which published his famed Arabian Nights paintings in 1906-07. After WWII, Harry Devlin
Harry Devlin
Harry Devlin was an artist and a painter who also worked as a cartoonist for magazines such as Collier's...
became the top editorial cartoonist at Collier's, one of the few publications then displaying editorial cartoons in full color. During the 1940s, Gurney Williams was the cartoon editor for Collier's, American Magazine and Woman's Home Companion, paying $40 to $150 for each cartoon. From a staggering stack of some 2000 submissions each week, Williams made a weekly selection of 30 to 50 cartoons, lamenting:
- The other day I found myself staring at the millionth cartoon submitted to me since I became humor editor here. I wish it could have been fresh and original. Instead, it showed several ostriches with their heads buried in the sand. Two others stood nearby. Said one to the other: "Where is everybody?"
Joseph Barbera
Joseph Barbera
Joseph Roland Barbera was an influential American animator, director, producer, storyboard artist, and cartoon artist, whose film and television cartoon characters entertained millions of fans worldwide for much of the twentieth century....
, before he found fame in animation, had several cartoons published in Collier's in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
Later years
During World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, with William L. Chenery as the editor (1941), Collier's readership reached 2.5 million. In the October 14, 1944, issue, the magazine published one of the first articles about concentration camps, Jan Karski
Jan Karski
Jan Karski was a Polish World War II resistance movement fighter and later scholar at Georgetown University. In 1942 and 1943 Karski reported to the Polish government in exile and the Western Allies on the situation in German-occupied Poland, especially the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, and...
's "Polish Death Camp," a harrowing account of his visit to Belzec
Belzec extermination camp
Belzec, Polish spelling Bełżec , was the first of the Nazi German extermination camps created for implementing Operation Reinhard during the Holocaust...
. Collier's carried that excerpt from Karski's Story of a Secret State a month-and-a-half prior to the book's publication by Houghton Mifflin
Houghton Mifflin
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is an educational and trade publisher in the United States. Headquartered in Boston's Back Bay, it publishes textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers and adults.-History:The company was...
. A Book of the Month Club
Book of the Month Club
The Book of the Month Club is a United States mail-order book sales club that offers a new book each month to customers.The Book of the Month Club is part of a larger company that runs many book clubs in the United States and Canada. It was formerly the flagship club of Book-of-the-Month Club, Inc...
selection, Karski's book became a bestseller, with 400,000 copies sold in 1944-45. The Collier's selection was reprinted in Robert H. Abzug's America Views the Holocaust: 1933-1945 (Palgrave, 1999).
Collier's had a circulation of 2,846,052 when Walter Davenport took over as editor in 1946, but the magazine began to lose readers during the post-World War II years. Collier's published long awaited images from the 200-inch (5.08 m) Hale telescope
Hale telescope
The Hale Telescope is a , 3.3 reflecting telescope at the Palomar Observatory in California, named after astronomer George Ellery Hale. With funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, he orchestrated the planning, design, and construction of the observatory, but did not live to see its commissioning...
's first light in 1949. In the early 1950s, Collier's ran a groundbreaking series of articles about space flight, Man Will Conquer Space Soon!
Man Will Conquer Space Soon!
Man Will Conquer Space Soon! was the title of a famous series of 1950s magazine articles in Collier's detailing Wernher von Braun's plans for manned spaceflight. Edited by Cornelius Ryan, the individual articles were authored by such space notables of the time as Willy Ley, Fred Lawrence Whipple,...
which prompted the general public to seriously consider the possibility of a trip to the moon. In 1951 an entire issue described the events and outcome of a hypothetical war between the United States and the Soviet Union, entitled Preview of the War We Do Not Want
Preview of the War We Do Not Want
Collier's Magazine devoted its entire 130 page October 27, 1951 issue to narrate the events in a hypothetical Third World War, in a feature article entitled Preview of the War We Do Not Want - an Imaginary Account of Russia's defeat and Occupation, 1952-60. Twenty writers, including Edward R...
. Collier's changed from a weekly to a biweekly in August 1953, but it continued to lose money. The magazine ceased publication with the issue dated January 4, 1957.
A huge history and collection of material from the magazine appeared with the publication of the 558-page A Cavalcade of Collier's, edited by Kenneth McArdle (Barnes, 1959).
Crowell-Collier Broadcasting
In the 1950s the company expanded into broadcasting, purchasing the San Francisco Bay Area station KLXKNEW (AM)
KNEW is a radio station in San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, CA, USA. The station is owned by Clear Channel. Prior to the format change, the station operated as CNET Radio, offering business and technology news 24 hours a day...
for $750,000 from its original owners, the Tribune Publishing Company of Oakland, which had founded the station three decades earlier. Eventually, Crowell-Collier owned three Top 40 stations: KFWB (Los Angeles), KDWB (Minneapolis) and KEWB
KNEW (AM)
KNEW is a radio station in San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, CA, USA. The station is owned by Clear Channel. Prior to the format change, the station operated as CNET Radio, offering business and technology news 24 hours a day...
(Oakland-San Francisco). Crowell-Collier sold KEWB to Metromedia Radio
Metromedia
Metromedia was a media company that owned radio and television stations in the United States from 1956 to 1986 and owned Orion Pictures from 1986-1997.- Overview :...
in April 1966 for nearly $2.5 million, and the station then became KNEW.
Hollywood's KFWB had been the top AM radio station in Southern California during the late 1950s and early 60's, but it was late catching up to current music trends such as the British Invasion and lost market share to other stations such as KHJ which switched formats to rock and roll. KFWB was sold to Westinghouse
Westinghouse Broadcasting
The Westinghouse Broadcasting Company, also known as Group W, was the broadcasting division of Westinghouse Electric Corporation. It owned several radio and television stations across the United States and distributed television shows for syndication....
in 1966 for what was then a record price for a radio station -$10 million.
JTE Multimedia Acquisition
On December 13, 2010, John Elduff, Managing Director of JTE Multimedia, purchased the rights to the Collier's trademark. JTE Multimedia, which is headquartered in Berwyn, Pennsylvania plans to resurrect the Collier's brand with a combination of investigative and political reporting, coverage of the global economy, and letters.Editors
- Peter Fenelon CollierPeter Fenelon CollierPeter Fenelon Collier was the founder of the publishing company P.F. Collier & Son, and in 1888 founded Collier's Weekly. P.F...
, editor (1888–1903) - Norman HapgoodNorman HapgoodNorman Hapgood was an American writer, journalist, editor, and critic, born in Chicago, Illinois. He graduated from Harvard in 1890 and from the law school there in 1893, then chose to become a writer...
, editor (1903–12) - Albert Lee, managing editor (1905)
- Robert J. Collier, editor (1912–14)
- Mark Sullivan, editor (1914)
- Arthur H. Gleason, associate editor (1908–13)
- Finley Peter DunneFinley Peter DunneFinley Peter Dunne was a Chicago-based U.S. author, writer and humorist. He published Mr. Dooley in Peace and War, a collection of his nationally syndicated Mr. Dooley sketches, in 1898. The fictional Mr...
, editor - William Ludlow Chenery, editor (1925–31)
- Henry La Cossitt, editor (1944–46)
- Walter Davenport, editor (1946)
- Kenneth McArdle, editor (1955–57)
- John T. Elduff, editor and publisher (2011-)
External links
- http://ColliersMagazine.com
- http://jtemultimedia.com/
- Online archive of the covers of many issues