The Atlantic

For the ocean, see Atlantic Ocean. For other uses, see Atlantic (disambiguation).
The Atlantic

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Cover of The Atlantic
Editor in Chief James Bennet
Categories Literature, political science, foreign affairs
Frequency 10 issues a year
Publisher Hayley Romer
Total circulation
(2014)		 488,979[1]
Founder
Year founded 1857 (1857)
First issue November 1, 1857 (1857-11-01)
Company Atlantic Media
Country United States
Based in Washington, D.C.
Language American English
Website www.theatlantic.com
ISSN 1072-7825

The Atlantic is an American magazine, founded in 1857 as The Atlantic Monthly in Boston, Massachusetts. As of 2016 the magazine is based in Washington, D.C. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine, growing to achieve a national reputation as a high-quality review with a moderate worldview.[2] The magazine has notably recognized and published new writers and poets, as well as encouraged major careers. It has published leading writers' commentary on abolition, education, and other major issues in contemporary political affairs. The magazine has won more National Magazine Awards than any other monthly magazine.[3]

After experiencing financial hardship and a series of ownership changes, the magazine was reformatted as a general editorial magazine. Focusing on "foreign affairs, politics, and the economy [as well as] cultural trends", it is now primarily aimed at a target audience of serious national readers and "thought leaders".[4][5]

The first issue of the magazine was published on November 1, 1857.[6][7] The magazine's initiator and founder was Francis H. Underwood, an assistant to the publisher,[8][9][10] who received less recognition than his partners because he was "neither a 'humbug' nor a Harvard man".[11] The other founding sponsors were prominent writers, including Ralph Waldo Emerson; Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Harriet Beecher Stowe; John Greenleaf Whittier; and James Russell Lowell, who served as its first editor.

In 2010, The Atlantic posted its first profit in the previous decade. In profiling the publication at the time, The New York Times noted the accomplishment was the result of "a cultural transfusion, a dose of counterintuition and a lot of digital advertising revenue."[12]

Format, publication frequency, and name

The magazine, subscribed to by over 400,000 readers, now publishes ten times a year.[13] As the former name suggests, it was a monthly magazine for 144 years until 2001, when it published eleven issues; it published ten issues yearly from 2003 on, dropped "Monthly" from the cover starting with the January/February 2004 issue, and officially changed the name in 2007. The Atlantic features articles in the fields of the arts, the economy, foreign affairs, political science, and technology. Regular contributors include James Fallows and Jeffrey Goldberg.[14]

In April 2005, The Atlantic's editors decided to cease publishing fiction in regular issues in favor of a newsstand-only annual fiction issue edited by longtime staffer C. Michael Curtis. They have since re-instituted the practice.

On January 22, 2008, TheAtlantic.com dropped its subscriber wall and allowed users to freely browse its site, including all past archives.[15] In addition to TheAtlantic.com, The Atlantic's web properties have expanded to include TheAtlanticWire.com, a news- and opinion-tracking site launched in 2009,[16] and in 2011, TheAtlanticCities.com, a stand-alone website devoted to global cities and trends.[17] According to a Mashable profile in December 2011, "traffic to the three web properties recently surpassed 11 million uniques per month, up a staggering 2500% since The Atlantic brought down its paywall in early 2008."[18]

TheAtlantic.com covers politics, business, entertainment, technology, health, international affairs, and more. In December 2011, a new Health Channel launched on TheAtlantic.com, incorporating coverage of food, as well as topics related to the mind, body, sex, family, and public health.[19] TheAtlantic.com has also expanded to visual storytelling with the addition of the In Focus photo blog, curated by Alan Taylor,[20] and the Video Channel.[21]

Literary history

First publication of "Battle Hymn of the Republic"

A leading literary magazine, The Atlantic has published many significant works and authors. It was the first to publish pieces by the abolitionists Julia Ward Howe ("Battle Hymn of the Republic" on February 1, 1862), and William Parker's slave narrative, "The Freedman's Story" (in February and March 1866). It also published Charles W. Eliot's "The New Education", a call for practical reform that led to his appointment to presidency of Harvard University in 1869; works by Charles Chesnutt before he collected them in The Conjure Woman (1899); and poetry and short stories, helping launch many national literary careers. For example, Emily Dickinson, after reading an article in The Atlantic by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, asked him to become her mentor. In 2005, the magazine won a National Magazine Award for fiction.

Atlantic Monthly office, Ticknor & Fields, 124 Tremont Street, Boston, ca.1868[22]

The magazine also published many of the works of Mark Twain, including one that was lost until 2001. Editors have recognized major cultural changes and movements; for example, the magazine published Martin Luther King, Jr.'s defense of civil disobedience in "Letter from Birmingham Jail" in August 1963.[23]

The magazine has also published speculative articles that inspired the development of new technologies. The classic example is Vannevar Bush's essay "As We May Think" (July 1945), which inspired Douglas Engelbart and later Ted Nelson to develop the modern workstation and hypertext technology.

In addition to its fiction and poetry, the magazine publishes writing on society and politics. "A three-part series by William Langewiesche in 2002 on the rebuilding of the World Trade Center generated headlines, as have articles by James Fallows on planning for the Iraq war and reconstruction."[24]

The cover of the original issue of The Atlantic, November 1, 1857

As of 2012, its writers included Mark Bowden, Ta-Nehisi Coates, James Fallows, Jeffrey Goldberg, Robert D. Kaplan, Megan McArdle, and Jeffrey Tayler.

Ownership

For all but recent decades, The Atlantic was known as a distinctively New England literary magazine (as opposed to Harper's and later The New Yorker, both from New York City). It achieved a national reputation and was important to the careers of many American writers and poets. By its third year, it was published by the famous Boston publishing house Ticknor and Fields (later to become part of Houghton Mifflin). The magazine was purchased in 1908 by its then editor, Ellery Sedgwick, but remained in Boston.

In 1980, the magazine was acquired by Mortimer Zuckerman, property magnate and founder of Boston Properties, who became its Chairman. On September 27, 1999, Zuckerman transferred ownership of the magazine to David G. Bradley, owner of the Beltway news-focused National Journal Group. Bradley had promised that the magazine would stay in Boston for the foreseeable future, as it did for the next five and a half years.

In April 2005, however, the publishers announced that the editorial offices would be moved from its long-time home at 77 North Washington Street in Boston to join the company's advertising and circulation divisions in Washington, D.C.[24] Later in August, Bradley told the New York Observer, cost cutting from the move would amount to a minor $200,000–$300,000 and those savings would be swallowed by severance-related spending. The reason was to create a hub in Washington where the top minds from all of Bradley's publications could collaborate under the Atlantic Media Company umbrella. Few of the Boston staff agreed to relocate, and Bradley embarked on an open search for a new editorial staff.[25]

In 2006, Bradley hired James Bennet as editor-in-chief, who had been the Jerusalem bureau chief for The New York Times. He also hired writers including Jeffrey Goldberg and Andrew Sullivan.[26] Jay Lauf joined the organization as publisher and vice-president in 2008.[27]

The Wire

The Wire (previously known as The Atlantic Wire) is a sister site of TheAtlantic.com that aggregates news and opinions from online, print, radio, and television outlets.[28][29][30] When The Atlantic Wire first launched in 2009, it curated op-eds from across the media spectrum and summarized significant positions in each debate.[30] Expanded to encompass news and original reporting, regular features include "What I Read", showcasing the media diets of individuals from the worlds of entertainment, journalism, and politics, and "Trimming the Times",[31] a summary of the feature editor's choices of the best content in The New York Times. The Atlantic Wire rebranded itself as The Wire in November 2013.[32][33]

CityLab

CityLab (formerly The Atlantic Cities) is the latest expansion of The Atlantic's digital properties, launched in September 2011. The stand-alone site has been described as exploring and explaining "the most innovative ideas and pressing issues facing today's global cities and neighborhoods."[34] Featuring the work of Richard Florida, urban theorist, professor, and Atlantic senior editor, TheAtlanticCities.com also has been described as showcasing leading voices in the urban planning and community building arenas.[35] The Atlantic Cities was rebranded as CityLab on May 16, 2014.[36] In June 2015, it hosted the U.S. launch of the Universe Within, the final installment in the Highrise web documentary project.[37]

Critical reception

In June 2006, the Chicago Tribune named it one of the top ten English-language magazines, describing it as "a gracefully aging ... 150-year-old granddaddy of periodicals" because "it keeps us smart and in the know" with cover stories on the then-forthcoming fight over Roe v. Wade. It also lauded regular features such as "Word Fugitives" and "Primary Sources" as "cultural barometers."[38]

In January 14, 2013, The Atlantic's website published "sponsor content" about David Miscavige, the leader of the Church of Scientology. While the magazine had previously published advertising looking like articles, this one was met with wide criticism. The page comments were moderated by the marketing team with comments critical of the church being removed, while comments praising the church being downvoted by readers. Later that day, The Atlantic removed the piece from its website and issued an apology.[39][40][41]

List of editors

List of issues

See also

References

  1. ↑ "eCirc for Consumer Magazines". Alliance for Audited Media. December 31, 2014. Retrieved May 29, 2015.
  2. ↑ "The Atlantic Monthly". Encyclopedia Britannica.
  3. ↑ "AgentQuery :: Find the Agent Who Will Find You a Publisher". agentquery.com.
  4. ↑ "The Atlantic". amazon.com. Retrieved October 7, 2010.
  5. ↑ "The Atlantic". Retrieved October 7, 2010.
  6. ↑ Judy Berman (November 10, 2011). "Famous Magazines' First Covers". Flavorwire. Retrieved August 17, 2015.
  7. ↑ Alex French. "The Very First Issues of 19 Famous Magazines". Mental Floss. Retrieved August 10, 2015.
  8. ↑ Encyclopaedia of the Essay Tracy Chevalier - 2012 "The Atlantic Monthly American magazine, 1857 The Atlantic Monthly was founded in Boston in 1857 by Francis Underwood (an assistant to the publisher..."
  9. ↑ A History of the Atlantic Monthly, 1857-1909 Ellery Sedgwick - 2009 p.3 "The Atlantic was founded in 1857 by Francis Underwood, an assistant to the publisher Moses Phillips, and a group of New ..."
  10. ↑ The Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier Volume 2 1975 p.318 "..however, was the founding of the Atlantic Monthly in 1857. Initiated by Francis Underwood and with Lowell as its first editor, the magazine had been sponsored and organized by Lowell, Emerson, Holmes, and Longfellow. "
  11. ↑ Susan Goodman Republic of Words: The Atlantic Monthly and Its Writers 2011 p. 90 "Francis Parkman thought that the Atlantic's founder, Francis Underwood, never received adequate recognition because he was neither a 'humbug' nor a Harvard man"
  12. ↑ Peters, Jeremy W. (December 12, 2010). "Web Focus Helps Revitalize The Atlantic". The New York Times. Retrieved March 26, 2012.
  13. ↑ Kuczynski, Alex (May 7, 2001). "Media Talk: This Summer, It's the Atlantic Not-Monthly". The New York Times. Retrieved October 7, 2010. A change of name was not officially announced when the format first changed from a strict monthly (appearing 12 times a year) to a slightly lower frequency.
  14. ↑ "The Atlantic's Masthead". The Atlantic. Retrieved March 26, 2012.
  15. ↑ "Editors' Note". The Atlantic. Retrieved October 7, 2010.
  16. ↑ Summers, Nick (January 31, 2011). "Exclusive: Ex-Gawker Guy Snyder to Head Atlantic Wire, New Manhattan Staff". The New York Observer. Retrieved March 26, 2012.
  17. ↑ Kinsman, Matt (September 15, 2011). "The Atlantic Debuts TheAtlanticCities.com". FOLIO Magazine. Retrieved March 26, 2012.
  18. ↑ Indvik, Lauren (December 19, 2011). "Inside The Atlantic: How One Magazine Got Profitable by Going 'Digital First'". Mashable. Retrieved March 26, 2012.
  19. ↑ Moses, Lucia (December 13, 2011). "'The Atlantic' Continues Expansion With Health Channel". AdWeek. Retrieved March 26, 2012.
  20. ↑ Kaufman, Rachel (January 19, 2011). "Alan Taylor Jumps to The Atlantic". Media Bistro's Media Jobs Daily. Retrieved March 27, 2012.
  21. ↑ Kafka, Peter (August 4, 2011). "The Atlantic Launches a Video Aggregator With a Twist". All Things D. Retrieved March 27, 2012.
  22. ↑ Boston Directory, 1868.
  23. ↑ The Editors. "Martin Luther King's 'Letter From Birmingham Jail'". The Atlantic.
  24. 1 2 Feeney, Mark; Mehegan, David (April 15, 2005). "Atlantic, 148-year institution, leaving city: Magazine of Twain, James, Howells heads to capital". The Boston Globe.
  25. ↑ "Atlantic owner scours country for cinder-editor". New York Observer. August 29 – September 5, 2005.
  26. ↑ Kurtz, Howard (August 6, 2007). "The Atlantic's Owner Ponies Up". The Washington Post. Retrieved August 18, 2007.
  27. ↑ "Atlantic masthead". The Atlantic. Retrieved October 7, 2010.
  28. ↑ Carr, David (September 16, 2009). "Atlantic Hits the Wire With Lots of Opinions". Media Decoder Blog (The New York Times).
  29. ↑ Indvik, Lauren (February 2, 2012). "What's Next for The Atlantic Wire". Mashable.
  30. 1 2 Garber, Megan (September 16, 2009). "More on The Atlantic: Wire They Aggregating?". Columbia Journalism Review.
  31. ↑ "'Trimming the Times': The Atlantic Wire's new feature wants you to make the most of your 20 clicks". Nieman Journalism Lab. Retrieved March 26, 2012.
  32. ↑ "'Atlantic Wire' relaunches as 'The Wire'". Capital New York. Retrieved December 3, 2013.
  33. ↑ "The Atlantic Wire Relaunches as The Wire". Adweek. Retrieved December 3, 2013.
  34. ↑ "The Atlantic Cities". TheAtlanticCities.com. Retrieved March 26, 2012.
  35. ↑ "The Atlantic Debuts TheAtlanticCities.com". Folio.com. Retrieved March 26, 2012.
  36. ↑ "Introducing CityLab.com: All Things Urban, from The Atlantic" (Press release). The Atlantic. May 16, 2014. Retrieved May 17, 2014.
  37. ↑ Capps, Kriston (June 2, 2015). "Explore the Digital Lives of Global Highrises in 'Universe Within'". CityLab. Retrieved June 5, 2015.
  38. ↑ "50 Best Magazines," Chicago Tribune, June 15, 2006.
  39. ↑ Statement from The Atlantic, Natalie Raabe.
  40. ↑ The Atlantic's Scientology problem, start to finish, Erik Wemple, The Washington Post blog, January 15, 2013
  41. ↑ Brian Stelter and Christine Haughney, "The Atlantic Apologizes for Scientology Ad", January 15, 2013, The New York Times.

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