The New York Public Library will be closed from May 26 to May 28.
New Yorker Magazine, Inc.
Manuscripts and Archives Division
Restricted access; Manuscripts and Archives Division; Permit must be requested at the division indicated.
Microfilm must be used in lieu of originals when available.
New Yorker records consist of correspondence, interoffice memoranda, edited and corrected manuscripts and typescripts, drawings, statistical reports, lists of storyand art ideas, photographs, and sound recordings and printed materials created during the foundation and day-to-day operations of the magazine from 1924-1984. This material documents the production of every issue of the magazine and provides insight on the careers of its staff and contributors. The files of founding Editor Harold Rossinclude memoranda and correspondence that document his meticulous attention to every aspect of the magazine's production. The collection includes only a few files from the office William Shawn, Ross' successor, but Shawn's influence is well evidenced by material included in other records series from his tenure. "Run and Killed" manuscripts files contain edited drafts of non-fiction articles. "Copy and Source" files contain typescripts of all items published from 1951-1981. Editorial Business files include letters to the editor, staff replies, and reprint and permissions requests. Log books, lists, and files of ideas for articles and art document how the magazine generated editorial content, and how writers chose their subjects. Administrative records include accounts of contributor payments and staff salaries, memoranda concerning writer and artist contracts, and legal files.
Interoffice memoranda appear in almost every part of thecollection and include story ideas, editor's queries, comments on individual articles and entire issues of the magazine, reports on authors' and artists' contractual status, advertisement approvals and rejections, and discussions of legal and administrative issues. Non-textual materials include original drawings and photographs removed from other parts of the collection, tearsheets of published cartoons and accompanying editorial comments, and a few examples of Harold Ross' recorded dictation. Additional artwork appears in files throughout the collection in the form of tearsheets.
Weekly magazine founded in New York City in 1925 by HaroldW. Ross, Jane Grant, Alexander Woollcott and Raoul Fleischman. Ross, a former newspaper writer, convinced Fleischman, heir to a fortune derived from yeast and bakery businesses, to provide funds to establish a sophisticated, humorous publication aimed at a cosmopolitan audience. The first issue appeared on February 17, 1925. The New Yorker's signature editorial style was defined during the late 1920s by Ross, Grant, fiction editor Katharine White, and art director Rea Irvin,who designed the layout, typeface, and famous Eustace Tilley symbol. Prominent authors associated with the magazine's early years include E. B. White, James Thurber,Wolcott Gibbs, Edmund Wilson and Dorothy Parker. During the early 1930s, The New Yorker maintained an aloof, casual tone towards social issues associated with the economic depression, remaining primarily a humor magazine.Stronger emphasis was placed on serious journalism beginning in 1936, as non-fiction editor St. Clair McElwaycultivated the talent of such writers as Joseph Mitchell, A. J. Liebling, Brendan Gill, Philip Hamburger and Emily Kahn. McKelway's successor, William Shawn, convinced Harold Ross to devote much attention to World War II.
After the war, circulation increased dramatically as TheNew Yorker became a truly national publication. Harold Ross died in 1951 and was succeeded as Editor by William Shawn, who continued to broaden the magazine's outlook andraise its standards for literary and investigative journalism. Shawn maintained Ross' meticulous editorial standards, reading every word of each issue before appeared. Even the copy and content of advertisements was subject to editorial review. Advertising sales peaked in the late 1960s, then gradually declined through the 1970s and 1980s, despite the magazine's formidable literary reputation. In 1985 The New Yorker was purchased by Advance Publications, Inc., owner of the Conde Nast magazine.
Among first to enter action. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division.
One of 700,000 pictures in the NYPL Digital Gallery
NYPL Photostore