Popular Culture Review Vol. 4, No. 2, June 1993 | Page 7

Fortune Magazine in the 1930s:
American Business
Expands Its Vision
In February 1930 the U.S. economy was sliding into a deep
depression. This was an improbable time for the initial publication
of Henry Luce's deluxe new Fortune magazine, dedicated to the
proposition that "Business, in the modem sense of the word, is the
distinctive expression of the American genius."^ Fortune was not only
extraordinarily expensive (its newsstand price of one dollar compared
to five or ten cents for typical magazines of the 1930s) but also
represented a revolutionary approach to reporting business. It proved
to be a profitable enterprise for Henry Luce’s burgeoning publishing
empire.
Luce perceived in the late 1920s that business, the "focus of our
national energies," did not receive its literary or journalistic just due.
Luce had co-founded Time in 1923, but this successful general
newsmagazine had a necessarily small business section. The leading
business magazines of the time—Dun's Review, Barron's, Forbes--aU
concentrated on corjX)rate finance and securities. The pre-publication
prospectus for Fortune asked, "where is the publication which even
attempts to portray Business in all its heroic present-day proportions,
or that succeeds in conveying a sustained sense of the challenging
personalities, significant trends and high excitements of this vastly
stirring Civilization of Business?"^ Fortune, it was promised, would
be such a publication.
Luce and his associates affirmed in their pre-publication
prospectus that "Fortune differs from other general Business
magazines essentially as follows:
1. It will avoid generalities such as 'Cooperation between
Capital and Labor.'
2. It will have no 'inspirational' matter.
3. It will contain no advice on how to run your business.
4. No tipstering.
5. No puffing of individuals.
6. No 'defending' of Business.