Harper's Weekly

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Title head of the first edition of Harper's Weekly, January 3, 1857

Harper's Weekly , also HarpWeek , a Journal of Civilization , was an American news magazine from Harper & Brothers , which appeared weekly on Saturdays from 1857 to 1916. It was the leading illustrated press product of the United States and is still regarded as the central medium of research on events of the 19th century from the perspective of the so-called New World , including the Civil War from 1861 to 1865, the phase of reconstruction ( Reconstruction ) after the end of the war and slavery as well as the so-called "golden age" by Mark Twain (Gilded Age ). Among other things, it published international news, fictional stories and sometimes feared caricatures.

founding

from left: Fletcher , James , John and Joseph Harper, the partner of the publishing house Harper & Brothers in New York City , circa 1860

The brothers James and John Harper had opened their own printing works in New York City in 1817 at the age of 22 and 20 , under the name J. & J. Harper . Later their younger brothers Joseph Wesley and Fletcher joined them. As early as 1825, the company was the largest book publisher in the USA as a bookstore. In 1833 the company was renamed Harper & Brothers , still known today as HarperCollins .

The persistence and sovereignty of the brothers becomes clear with the description of an episode that Carl Berendt Lorck received in his handbook of the history of printing for posterity. In it he describes the fire on December 10, 1853 that destroyed the publishing house near the Brooklyn Bridge:

“When the great Harper's establishment in Franklin Square [on Franklin Square] fell into flames in 1853, John and his brothers stood quietly among the excited crowd and watched the devastating element progress. Pulling his watch out of his pocket, he remarked to the brothers that it was now meal time; it would be best if you came to him after dinner, there you could calmly consider what to do! The brothers met and sat in silence, deep in thought. Then John spoke up: 'Our business is too valuable to be abandoned or to be transferred to other hands. We all have sons; they have helped us and will soon be able to take our places. We want to keep running the business and show them that we're not sleepy-headed yet. ""

- Carl Berendt Lorck

Fletcher Harper is credited with creating the Harper's Weekly periodical . He had become aware of the success of the British The Illustrated London News, published since 1842 . The local model is also said to have been Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (also: Leslie's Weekly ) published by the young British immigrant Frank Leslie , which was published in New York City on December 15, 1855. He had previously cooperated with Phineas Taylor Barnum . Just over a year later, on January 3, 1857, Fletcher Harper published the first edition of Harper's Weekly . The magazine was aimed at the middle and upper social class and paid attention to a formulation and illustration that appeared family-friendly.

Content

Title page of the first edition from January 3, 1857

Editorial text and commercial advertisements

Harper's Weekly dealt with political, military, social and cultural topics and contained a large number of commercial advertisements that reflected the color of the time and the state of social and technical development.

From its founding in 1857 to the beginning of the Civil War in April 1861, the newspaper initially took a moderate editorial stance on slavery , especially since it had a noteworthy readership in the southern states . Politically, the newspaper was moderately republican. The state union wanted it to be preserved at all costs.

The leading articles of the paper acquired greater importance from George William Curtis, who was editor-in-chief between 1863 and 1892 and a co-founder of the Republican Party . In his successor, the leading articles by German-born Carl Schurz attracted attention and sometimes led to controversy. The sometimes controversial reformer Schurz had previously been Secretary of the Interior and had earned services that made him very popular. Mark Twain wrote an obituary in Harper's Weekly after his death in 1906 .

On June 13, 1893, the journalist George Parsons Lathrop, the son-in-law of Nathaniel Hawthorne , introduced the cinematographer of Thomas Alva Edison in Harper's Weekly .

The paper was not free from racism . After rumors of sexual assaults by drunk black men on Anglo-American women, serious rioting against black men broke out in Atlanta , Georgia , between September 22 and 24, 1906. In Harper's Weekly was performed, alcohol consumption leads to complete sexual Enthemmtheit African American men.

Critics called the magazine in phonetically almost identical variation of his title as "Harper's Weakly" ( Engl. Weakly = character weak, powerless, soft).

Illustrations

Santa Claus by Thomas Nast , published January 3, 1863
Pacific Chivalry by Thomas Nast , published August 7, 1869
Depiction of Uncle Sam with Interior Minister Carl Schurz , who is sitting at the piano in front of a score entitled "My heart is on the Rhine" ( Thomas Nast , published on August 24, 1872)

The headline or newspaper head of Harper's Weekly , which was retained for decades , contained various symbols. He made a clear reference to God (handout from heaven), to freedom (passing on the torch ), to art ( Athena , palette , lyre , pen ) and to science ( parchment roll with compass , books , telescope , globe ). At the same time, a combination of torch and book stood for intellectual enlightenment , for free access to education and knowledge, but in the present case at a price of 5 US cents per newspaper copy.

At a time when photography ( daguerreotype ) was only slowly beginning to dominate the press, many impressive wood engravings illustrated the leaded texts in order to illustrate locations, people and events for readers and viewers. This was also due to the fact that extremely long exposure times made it impossible to photograph moving subjects for a long time. Many talented draftsmen and wood cutters were needed. Like documentary photos, documenting drawings and wood engravings of current events first had to be made and therefore always appeared after an incident. Since it still does not allow the printing technology of the time to reprint photos, portraits were like those of US President Abraham Lincoln or Confederate -Generals Robert E. Lee Although already photographed, but then adapted as wood engraving, to play them within the sheet to can.

Illiterate people also liked to use Harper's Weekly because they could at least partially keep themselves up to date with the large number of descriptive illustrations, while they found out more information from hearsay or from newspaper boys who called out the main reports to promote sales. A large number of the illustrations on the sheet had almost narrative qualities due to their great attention to detail, which one could delve into for a long time.

The drawings and caricatures by artists such as Winslow Homer , Henry Mosler and, above all, Thomas Nast , a German who emigrated from the Palatinate, who was regarded as the "father of political caricature in the United States", were of particular importance . Nast became famous across the country through Harper's Weekly and the newspaper benefited tremendously from his work. On the one hand, these drawings and caricatures helped to shape public opinion, on the other hand they also reflected it. This was especially true for the period from the Civil War to the end of the 19th century.

On July 4, 1863, an article appeared with the title A typical Negro (= A typical negro). Three illustrations grouped together showed a before-and-after black man named Gordon . The first picture showed him in torn and ragged clothing, just as he had run away from his owner and after about a hundred kilometers on foot, encountered Union troops in camp. The second picture showed his bare back, which clearly showed signs of being severely flogged. In the third picture he had been dressed again after his care - in a blue uniform of the Union Army.

As early as 1868, Harper's Weekly warned strongly against the harmful use of tobacco by publishing meaningful drawings.

Based on the illustrations by Thomas Nast published in Harper's Weekly , the escaped corrupt New York politician William Tweed was recognized and arrested in Cuba in 1873.

Against racism, for example, turned against an illustration by Nast, which was published in Harper's Weekly in 1876 . It showed a copperhead snake , embodying the creeping venom of racism in the southern states, writhing around a tree.

In Harper's Weekly, Nast helped develop the world-famous caricaturing fictional character of Uncle Sam , who represents the United States. On the publication date January 3, 1863, he drew the fictional figure of the plump Santa Claus with a bushy beard, which is still valid today , but was dressed in stars and stripes almost uniformed during the war . He characterized the Democratic Party by the depiction of a donkey, the Republican Party by that of an elephant. Based on his drawings in Harper's Weekly during the Civil War, Thomas Nast was named by US President Abraham Lincoln as "our best recruiting sergeant for the United States Military". Nast's wood engravings, depicting scenes of the Civil War, sold in large numbers across the country.

distribution

The war of secession made Harper's Weekly very widespread , which illustrated the various locations and front scenes with its reporting, drawings and comments in a way that enabled readers not only to follow the events, but almost to experience them. In 1860 the sheet reached a circulation of 200,000 copies, at times a maximum of 300,000 copies, while the actual readership should have included at least half a million people.

20th century

After 1900 the paper was increasingly devoted to political and social issues. It also published articles by guest political authors such as Theodore Roosevelt . Editor-in-chief George Brinton McClellan Harvey supported a presidential candidacy of the Democrat Woodrow Wilson from 1906 . In 1912 the newspaper was merged with The Independent and discontinued in 1916 as an independent title. The last edition appeared on May 13, 1916. In the meantime there have been a number of attempts to revive the title permanently, most recently in 1975/76, so far unsuccessful.

Editors-in-chief

Well-known authors and draftsmen (excerpt)

literature

  • John Grafton: New York in the Nineteenth Century. 317 Engravings from Harper's Weekly and other Contemporary Sources (= Dover Americana). Dover Publications, New York City 1980. ISBN 0-4862-3516-5 . OCLC 7260852
  • David B. Sachsman, Dea Lisica: After the War. The Press in a Changing America . Routledge, London a. New York 2017. ISBN 978-1-4128-6513-5 . OCLC 1005699734

Web links

Commons : Harper's Weekly  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Harper’s Weekly . In: ASA Library of Lehigh University, at: lehigh.edu
  2. ↑ a b c HarpWeek . In: New York Public Library, at: nypl.org
  3. ^ Fiona Deans Halloran: Thomas Nast. The Father of Modern Political Cartoons . The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 2012. ISBN 978-0-80783-587-6 , p. 254.
  4. ↑ a b c d e John Adler: Background: Harper's Weekly , on: harpweek.com
  5. ^ Timeline, 1853 , homepage of the publisher
  6. ^ Contemporary Illustraution
  7. ↑ Handbook of the history of book printing . Volume 2, JJ Weber, Leipzig 1882, p. 121.
  8. ↑ Harper's Weekly . In: Spartacus Educational, on: spartacus-educational.com
  9. ↑ a b c d Uwe Schmitt: Rebel and Minister . In: Die Welt , May 11, 2006, on: welt.de
  10. ↑ Harper's Weekly , May 26, 1906
  11. ^ Scott Horton: Schurz: The True Americanism . In: Harper's Magazine , at: harpers.org
  12. ^ Rainer Winter, Elisabeth Niederer: Ethnography, cinema and interpretation - the performative turn of the social sciences. The Norman K. Denzin Reader . transcript Verlag, Bielefeld 2015. ISBN 978-3-8394-0903-9 , pp. 95–96.
  13. ^ Thomas Gibson: The Anti-Negro Riot in Atlanta . In: Harper's Weekly , October 13, 1906, pp. 1457-1459.
  14. ↑ Kristoff Kerl: Masculinity and Modern Anti-Semitism. A genealogy of Leo Frank-Case, 1860s – 1920s . Böhlau-Verlag, Cologne and Weimar 2017. ISBN 978-3-4125-0545-5 , p. 245.
  15. ↑ Harper's Weekly Image Gallery . In: Smithsonian Archives of American Art, at: aaa.si.edu
  16. ^ Brigitte Baetz : Joseph Pulitzer - inventor of the sensational press and benefactor . In: Deutschlandfunk, April 17, 2018, on: deutschlandfunk.de
  17. ↑ With a sharp pen against slavery ( Memento of the original from August 5, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: Pirmasenser Zeitung , February 21, 2018, on: pirmasenser-zeitung.de @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.pirmasenser-zeitung.de
  18. ↑ Georg Schild: From Slavery to the Civil Rights Movement: Racial Relations in America, 1770 to 1945 . In: Michael Butter, Astrid Franke, Horst Tonn (eds.): From Selma to Ferguson - Race and Racism in the USA . transcript Verlag, Bielefeld 2016. ISBN 978-3-8394-3503-8 , pp.
  19. ↑ Cartoon about tobacco use . In: Harper's Weekly , Jan. 11, 1868. In: The New York Times , Jan. 11, 2001 at: nytimes.com
  20. ↑ Alexander Roob: Thomas Nast and Theodor Kaufmann: Höherearten von Hieroglyph . In: Melton Prior Institut, Düsseldorf, at: meltonpriorinstitute.org
  21. ↑ Thomas Nast, in Harper's Weekly , No. 1036, Nov. 4, 1876, p. 896.
  22. ↑ Florian Stark: The German who invented the US $ and Santa Claus . In: Die Welt , December 26, 2015, on: welt.de
  23. ↑ Markus C. Schulte von Drach: Animal party symbols . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , July 28, 2004, on: sueddeutsche.de
  24. ↑ Thomas Nast . In: Encyclopedia Britannica, at: britannica.com
  25. ↑ David Stephen Heidler, Jeanne T. Heidler, David J. Coles: Encyclopedia of the American Civil War. A Political, Social, and Military History . WW Norton & Company, New York City 2002. ISBN 0-39304-758-X , p. 931.
  26. ↑ North American Review , April 1865: “Its vast circulation, deservedly secured and maintained by the excellence and variety of its illustrations of the scenes and events of the war, as well as by the spirit and tone of its editorials, has carried it far and wide. It has been read in city parlors, in the log hut of the pioneer, by every camp-fire of our armies, in the wards of our hospitals, in the trenches before Petersburg, and in the ruins of Charleston; and wherever it has gone, it has kindled a warm glow of patriotism, it has nerved the hearts and strengthened the arms of the people, and it has done its full part in the furtherance of the great cause of the Union, Freedom, and the Law. "
  27. ↑ Arthur S. Link: Woodrow Wilson: The American as Southerner . In: The Journal of Southern History , Vol. 36, No. 1, February 1970, pp. 3-17.
  28. ^ John A. Thompson: Reformers and War: American Progressive Publicists and the First World War . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2003. ISBN 978-0-5215-4412-2 , p. 170.
  29. ↑ Harper's Weekly . In: The Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection, at: lincolncollection.org
  30. ↑ Harper's Weekly . In: US Library of Congress, at: loc.gov
  31. ↑ Harper's Weekly . In: Hathi Trust Digital Library, at: hathitrust.org