Scribner Magazine

Overview

The Scribner Magazine was in circulation from January 1887 to May 1939, encompassing the birth period of modernism, and it continued as Scribner’s Commentator until 1942 when Ralph Townsend, one of the magazine’s staff, was arrested for sedition in World War II. World War I did not sink its teeth into literary thought until near the end of the Scribner’s production. Writers such as Edith Wharton, Ernest Hemingway, John Galsworthy, President Theodore Roosevelt, and Richard Harding Davis contributed to the Scribner Magazine, giving the magazine a reputation for collecting a balance of literary and popular work.

As an American publication, from 1914-1917 Scribner’s embodies the concept of nationality. Scribner’s boasted a transatlantic view of global issues, publishing works by authors of nationalities other than American, like Rudyard Kipling, and advertising books that offer “authoritative and comprehensive discussion of all phases of business and politics in all important countries in the world” (12; vol. 55, no. 1). Many of the stories from issues in 1914 illustrate American fascination with and idealization of Europe, partially because it was seen as fashionable to travel abroad. For example, the January 1914 features several stories detailing accounts of European travel such as “A Traveler at Forty” and “First Trip Abroad”; in “Abroad with Jane” the author exclaims how the “best thing in London is London” (10; vol. 56, no. 3).

This fascination with European affairs continued when the First World War began; the magazine offers sensationalized accounts recorded in “vivid, picturesque style[s]” so that Americans could experience the war without involvement (9; vol. 56, no. 3). These accounts illustrate America’s attempt at neutrality in the early years of the war. One story, for example, “give[s] a view of the struggle from the Austrian side” (10; vol. 56, no. 4). However, the volume of accounts about the Allies in comparison to those about the Axis shows that the nation was not completely without bias, and this bias was largely due to historically-based alliances with England and France. Many articles are focused on the involvement of Americans in the war while the country remained neutral.