 ActressAnne Gwynne, a 1939–40 model forCatalina Swimwear, was featured on the January 30, 1940, cover ofLook. | |
| Frequency | Bi-weekly |
|---|---|
| First issue | January 2, 1937 (1937-01-02) |
| Final issue | October 19, 1971 |
| Company | Cowles Media |
| Country | United States |
| Based in | Des Moines, Iowa |
| Language | English |
| ISSN | 0024-6336 |
Look was abiweekly, general-interestmagazine published inDes Moines,Iowa, from 1937 to 1971, with editorial offices inNew York City. It had an emphasis onphotographs andphotojournalism in addition to human interest and lifestyle articles. It published many important articles about racial injustice and the civil rights movement. A large-sized magazine of 11 in × 14 in (280 mm × 360 mm), it was a direct competitor to market leaderLife.Look ceased publication in 1971.
Gardner "Mike" Cowles Jr. (1903–1985), the magazine's co-founder (with his brotherJohn) and first editor, was executive editor ofThe Des Moines Register andThe Des Moines Tribune. When the first issue went on sale in early 1937, it sold 705,000 copies.[1][2]
Although planned to begin with the January 1937 issue, the actual first issue ofLook to be distributed was the February 1937 issue, numbered as Volume 1, Number 2. It was published monthly for five issues (February–May 1937), then switched to biweekly starting with the May 11, 1937 issue. Page numbering on early issues counted the front cover as page one. Early issues, subtitledMonthly Picture Magazine, carried no advertising.[3]
The unusual format of the early issues featured layouts of photos with long captions or very short articles. The magazine's backers described it as "an experiment based on the tremendous unfilled demand for extraordinary news andfeature pictures". It was aimed at a broader readership thanLife, promising trade papers thatLook would have "reader interest for yourself, for your wife, for your private secretary, for your office boy".[4]
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From 1946 to 1970,Look published theFootball Writers Association of America College All America Football Team and brought players and selected writers to New York City for a celebration. During that 25-year period, the FWAA team was introduced on national television shows byBob Hope,Steve Allen,Perry Como, and others.
Its January 24, 1956, article "The Shocking Story of Approved Killing in Mississippi", included murder confessions from J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant, who had been acquitted in 1955 of killing 14-year-old boyEmmett Till.[5][6]
Look was the first major magazine for largely white audiences that hired an African American staff writer, Ernest Dunbar, in 1954, and published the first photograph of a Black fashion model, Bani Yelverton, in 1958.
Look became particularly progressive politically in the 1960s under editors Daniel Mich and Patricia Carbine, who became the first woman to be executive editor of a large American publication that was not a "women's magazine."
Within weeks of its debut, more than a million copies were bought of each issue,[7] and it became a biweekly. By 1948, it sold 2.9 million copies per issue.[8] Circulation reached 3.7 million in 1954,[9] and peaked at 7.75 million in 1969. Its advertising revenue reached its highest point in 1966 at $80 million(equivalent to $775.3 million in 2024).[10] Of the leading general-interest, large-format magazines,Look had a circulation second only toLife and ahead ofThe Saturday Evening Post, which closed in 1969, andCollier's, which folded in 1956.
Look was published under various company names: Look, Inc. (1937–45), Cowles Magazines (1946–65), andCowles Communications, Inc. (1965–71). Its New York editorial offices were opened in the architecturally distinctive new488 Madison Avenue in 1950, dubbed the "Look Building", on theNational Register of Historic Places since 2005.[11]
Look ceased publication with its issue of October 19, 1971, the victim of a $5 million loss (equivalent to $40.48 million in 2024)in revenues in 1970 (with television cutting deeply into its advertising revenues), a slack economy, and rising postal rates. Circulation was at 6.5 million when it closed.[10]
French publisherHachette brought backLook, the Picture Newsmagazine in February 1979 as a biweekly in a slightly smaller size. It lasted only a year. Subscribers received copies ofEsquire to fulfill their terms.
TheLook Magazine Photograph Collection was donated to theLibrary of Congress and contains about five million items.[12]
After the closure, sixLook employees created afulfillment house using the computer system newly developed by the magazine's circulation department.[13] The company,CDS Global, became an international provider of customer relationship services.
Stanley Kubrick was a staff photographer forLook before starting his career in feature films. Of the more than 300 assignments Kubrick did forLook from 1946 to 1951, more than 100 are in the Library of Congress collection. AllLook jobs with which he was associated have been cataloged with descriptions focusing on the images that were printed. Other related Kubrick material is located at theMuseum of the City of New York.[14]
Frank Bauman was a staff photographer forLook following his career as war correspondent inWorld War II. Bauman worked alongsideMargaret Bourke-White to document life inCuba and theSoviet Union during theCold War. Bauman was known for his experimental styles, and collaborated withDoc Edgerton to develop theStroboscopic effect, which proved thecurveball curves and settled a longstanding dispute.
Alabama journalistWilliam Bradford Huie was commissioned byLook and other periodicals to write articles about theCivil Rights Movement in the South. In January 1956 he published an interview inLook in which two of the six white men who killedEmmett Till admitted their guilt and described their crime.[15] They had been acquitted at trial several months previously by an all-white jury. His work forLook was criticized at the time as "checkbook journalism", because he was known to pay interviewees to speak with them.[16]
James Karales was a photographer forLook from 1960 to 1971. Covering theCivil Rights Movement throughout its duration, he took many memorable photographs, including the iconic photograph of theSelma to Montgomery march showing people proudly marching along the highway under a cloudy, turbulent sky.[17]
Beginning in 1963,Norman Rockwell, after closing his career with theSaturday Evening Post, began making illustrations forLook. Among Rockwell's 30 paintings for Look were his powerful civil rights paintings, "The Problem We All Live With" and "Murder in Mississippi."
