Sixty-Four
Years of Life:
What Did
Its 2,128 Covers Cover?
by
David E. Sumner
Professor
of Journalism
Ball State
University
dsumner@bsu.edu
Authors
note: If you print this article, you will need to print each of the 7
tables separately. You can also look up any Life magazine cover by
keyword or date between 1936 and 1972 at this link:
http://www.life.com/Life/search/covers
Purpose
and Introduction
The first cover of Life
magazine, dated Nov. 23, 1936, showed a Margaret Bourke-White photo of the Ft.
Peck Dam in Montana built by the WPA.
The first inside photo displayed a surgical-masked doctor in a crowded
delivery room. With the caption “Life begins,” the full-page photo
presented a baby boy in the doctor’s gloved hand.” [1]
That baby was George
Story who became a journalist and then a city manager before retiring to Hawaii.
On April 4, 2000, only days after it was announced that Life would fold for the second time,
George Story died at age 63 of heart failure. “George was always so positive and he
really enjoyed his fame as Life’s baby,” his widow said in the May
2000 issue of Life
- its last. [2]
George Story’s life paralleled the story of Life, whose rise and fall became
arguably the most spectacular in 20th century magazine history. From its first issue, sales far exceeded
even Luce’s expectations. His
prospectus predicted that it would take two or three years to reach a
“break-even circulation” of 500,000.
Nevertheless, all 250,000 copies of the first issue sold out the first
day. A dealer in Cleveland, who
received 300 copies, telegraphed the publisher’s circulation office: “Life sold out first hour. Could sell
5000 more.” [3]
From Los Angeles came the word, “First issue of Life caused heaviest demand…of any
publication ever known. Clean sellout.
We lost thousands of sales and still a heavy demand.” By the end of 1937, Life’s circulation reached 1.5
million.
Two years after its final
issue seems an appropriate time to look back on the history of Life
magazine. The purpose of this research, therefore, is to conduct a content
analysis of the 2,128 cover images of Life. As the most important page of a
magazine, the cover “is the magazine’s face; it creates the all-important first
impression.” It must also set the
tone or personality of the magazine, attract attention; provide continuity and
identification from issue to issue; and lure the reader inside. [4]
Most designers
and editors agree that a good cover should be “simple, competitive, poster-like
and eye-catching. It should express
the philosophy of the magazine and be easily recognizable to the reader.” [5]
The choice of who or
what to feature on the cover becomes not only an editorial one, but can also be
“a social indicator of where any group in society is today in terms of
importance and value.” [6]
This
research will determine whether Life covers functioned as a “cultural
artifact,” a “marketing tool,” or both.
If the magazine’s covers functioned as both cultural artifact and
marketing tool, then it may be concluded that readers bought magazines with
covers that accurately reflected social reality. If the magazine cover was only a
marketing tool, then readers may, for example, have preferred covers that
portrayed beautiful, sexy women or reflected their own insular prejudices. Most academic studies on magazines
approach the cover from the
“cultural artifact” model.
All of the professional literature on magazines, however, assumes that
the cover is a marketing tool and give advice to editors and publishers about
how to create best-selling covers.
The cultural artifact model looks at magazines as a reflection of
cultural demography. These studies,
assuming social responsibility on the part of magazines, measure how accurately
covers reflect gender, ethnic, or other cultural norms. The marketing tool model, on the other
hand, presumes that the cover is simply a marketing decision. Editors and publishers choose cover
images on the basis of what they believe will sell the most copies.
Johnson and Christ illustrated the “cultural artifact” model in their
studies about women appearing on the covers of Time magazine. Their first study analyzed how and when
women were portrayed in Time’s “Man of the Year” covers from its
founding in 1923 up through 1984. [7]
Their second
Time study, “Women Through Time: Who Gets Covered?” was
groundbreaking because - rather than choosing a sample of covers - it investigated
every single cover of a magazine throughout its history until the current
date. [8]
Their third study, “The Representation of Women: The News Magazine
Cover as an International Cultural Artifact,” analyzed how Time portrayed
international women. It also looked at every single cover of the magazine. In summarizing their purpose for
studying Time, Johnson and Christ wrote:
To investigate the covers of Time is to investigate an international
cultural artifact. The covers, serving as benchmarks to history and culture,
indicate which individual women attained power and status in their time.
Additionally, the covers, with their indication of occupational status, allow
researchers to see what myths or misconceptions, if any, were being
communicated. [9]
The same approach is reflected in Cramer’s article, “The State of Women’s
Magazine Research,” in which she wrote:
Increasingly the field of mass communications is concerned with media as
a social institution…. To address
such concerns, scholars focusing on women’s magazines could conceptualize their
work within theoretical frameworks that situate media within their particular
social, historical and political context and that would enable a focus on
questions of ideology and the meanings that are either conveyed through texts or
determined by readers.
[10]
Life’s
revenue losses in the 1960s and early 1970s brought it to a staggering halt with
its last weekly issue on Dec. 29, 1972.
Life reached a circulation
high in 1969 - 8.5 million - when it took one million Saturday Evening Post subscribers after
the Post died in February of that
year. But Life could never
attract sufficient advertising revenues to offset the cheap subscription rates
it had to offer to sustain that many readers. A 1972 study by the Association of
National Advertisers, for example, found that Life sold an average of 80 percent of
its subscriptions at less than the basic price. [11]
In a series of moves,
Life reduced its rate base to 5.5
million by 1972. By this time, “Life’s operating expenses exceeded its
income by some ten million dollars a year,” van Zuilen wrote. [12]
Re-launched as a monthly by Time, Inc. in 1978, Life endured another 22 years, but never
came close to the 8.5 million subscribers it enjoyed at its height. In 1980, it reported an average paid
circulation of 1,364,800 to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. By 1994, it had reached a circulation of
1,614,700, but declined to 1,558,800 by 1998, the last year of available figures
from the Audit Bureau. [13]
Life
sat itself up to follow the cultural artifact model by virtue of its purpose
statement. “To see life, to see the world; to eyewitness great events; to watch
the faces of the poor and the gestures of the proud,” read Life magazine’s purpose statement in
founder Henry Luce’s 1935 prospectus.
It continued:
To see strange things - machines, armies, multitudes, shadows in the jungle
and on the moon; to see man’s work - his paintings, towers and discoveries; to see
things thousands of miles away, things hidden behind walls and within rooms,
things dangerous to come to; the women that men love and many children; to see
and to take pleasure in seeing; to see and be amazed; to see and be
instructed…. To see, and to show,
is the mission now undertaken by a new kind of publication, THE SHOW-BOOK OF THE
WORLD….”
Did
Life’s covers reflect this purpose? Or
did its covers reflect tried-and-true marketing principles followed by most
other magazines? This study will
answer that question through a review of the professional and scholarly
literature and a content analysis of all of Life’s 2,128 covers.
Literature
Review
Scholarly
literature
Research on magazine covers is interdisciplinary with studies appearing
in mass communication, psychology, history, women’s studies, art, and sociology
journals. Most (although not all) of these studies share an implicit or explicit
“cultural artifact” model in approaching the examination of magazine
covers.
For example, when Johnson and Christ studied 50 years of Time magazine covers, they found that
women appeared on covers from 1923 through 1987 only 14 percent of the time - just
482 covers out of 3,386 issues published.
In 59 percent of those covers, women were depicted as entertainers or
“spouses.” However, they also found
that nearly twice as many covers showed women during 1965-1989 (269 covers or
20.6 percent of the time) than during 1940-1964 (147 covers or 11.2 percent of
the time). They found that the
greatest increase in women on covers came during the 1970s and 1980s. During the 1970s and 1980s, women
appeared on 232 covers compared to the 1930s and 1940s when women appeared on
117 covers. [14]
Sheppard also studied sex-role images in popular magazine covers. In her study, students rated magazine
covers on a seven-point scale that measured their degree of interest in reading
each magazine. Her results
confirmed that clusters of magazines reflected sex role images, that males and
females differed in their evaluation of magazine clusters, and that “women’s
responses to magazine covers revealed traditional versus nontraditional sex role
images.” [18]
In an Art Journal study, Marquardt examined the covers of
international political journals between 1919 and 1936. She compared cover
design and colors of “Leftist” and “Rightest” magazines from Germany, the Soviet
Union, and United States. She found that despite their increasingly overt
political focus, their covers revealed “a consistent use of innovative design
and modernist imagery.” With the
exception of the four “Rightest” journals, all were printed in black and
red - “colors that came to be identified with the radical (i.e., Communist)
movement,” she wrote. [19]
Two books about Life written
by former staff members did not reveal anything about its choice of covers or
cover-art philosophy: The Great American
Magazine - An Inside History of Life by Loudon Wainwright (Knopf, 1986) and
That Was the Life by Dora Jane Hamblin. (Norton,
1977).
Professional Literature
The dirty little secret of the magazine industry is that its
“sell-through” rate - the percentage of copies sold at retail outlets - averages
less than 50 percent. That means
more than half of all magazines sent to retail outlets end up in landfills - not
to mention those purchased and later discarded. A successful “sell through” means
anything more than 60 percent for most publishers. Magazine editors and cover designers go
to great lengths to create best-selling covers.
For example, when Meredith Berlin, the editor of Seventeen, joined its staff in January
1997, she wanted to put “Titanic” star Leonardo DiCaprio on the cover, she later
told an American Society of Magazine Editors seminar. However, veteran staffers
warned her: “Boys don’t sell. Boys
don’t sell. Boys don’t sell.” Previous issues featuring a boy on the
cover had sold poorly no matter how popular he was, they told her. Nevertheless, she went ahead and put
DiCaprio on the May 1997 cover and it became one of the magazine’s
best-sellers. [20]
Jeff Williams, a circulation consultant in Tulsa, Oklahoma, wrote in Folio, the magazine industry’s premier
trade journal: “When you talk about
newsstand sales in terms of 10,000 copies here and 30,000 copies there, those
large numbers all start with a single buyer choosing the magazine from amid
hundreds of other options. All
newsstand buyers take this step because of the cover. This means that the cover design - the
only real tool you have to get potential buyers - has to stand out.” [21]
Click and Baird in their textbook, Magazine Production and Publishing, say
that a good magazine cover has several functions: “In the first place, there is no other
page that has as much responsibility for setting the tone or personality, of the
magazine. Second, the cover must be
dynamic enough in appearance to draw readers to the magazine. Third, it must provide some continuing
characteristics that identify it from issue to issue…. Finally, it should lure the reader into
the magazine.” [22]
Even in Network Computing, the
editor expressed this philosophy when he wrote: “We use our cover not only to
hook you in but also to make a statement about who we are. It’s a fleeting chance to make a first
impression, a glance from across the bar - a provocative headline, an interesting
image or, hell, practically the entire table of contents.” [23]
At Cincinnati-based F&W Publications, publishers of seven magazines,
the circulation department controls the cover decision. David Lee, F&W’s corporate
circulation director, told Folio: “We
take the view that the contents belong to the editor and the packaging belong to
marketing. The cover is primarily a
sales tool. If we’re trying to
achieve retail sales, we should have the final say on the words and images on
the cover and how they work together to maximize sales.” [24]
A summary of the conventional wisdom about covers, reflected through the
professional literature as well as the author’s professional magazine
experience, includes five generally accepted principles
a)
Covers
with women sell better than covers with men. Even women’s magazines portray mostly
women on their covers, as illustrated by the anecdote quoted earlier with Seventeen editor Meredith Berlin.
b)
Covers
with people on them sell better than covers with other objects. Some studies
have shown that at least 75 percent of all covers feature one or two people on
them. An informal survey by the
author of 200 magazine covers on display at a bookstore showed that more than 60
percent of them displayed people on the cover.
c)
Movie
stars and entertainers sell better than politicians, business leaders, or sports
celebrities.
d)
Sex
sells.
e)
Good
news sells better than bad news.
Most covers emphasize positive, upbeat themes and cover lines.
These
principles are summarized in a classic quote from former People magazine editor Richard Stolley,
who once offered this prescription for magazine covers: “Young is better than
old. Pretty is better than ugly. Rich is better than poor. TV is better than music. Music is better
than movies. Movies are better than sports. Anything is better than politics.
And nothing is better than the celebrity dead.” [25]
Methodology
This study undertook a content analysis of every Life cover between its 1936 birth and
its second death in May 2000. Cover
collections came from three sources: a) the Life magazine website (http://www.lifemag.com/) with a searchable
database of every cover between 1936-1972, which Time, Inc. plans to continue to
maintain; b) the 60th anniversary issue (October 1996) containing a
photo of every cover between 1936 and 1996; and c) a university library
containing bound volumes of all 2,128 weekly and monthly issues. Life published a number of special
issues in addition to its monthly and weekly issues. Because they were often linked to
current events, they were excluded from this study because they might not
reflect typical content and choices made by the editors.
The content was analyzed according to type and theme of
cover image. The type of
image described the nature of persons or things depicted on the covers. The theme of the cover image
described the story, social trend, or historical event the particular cover was
depicting.
Unlike Time, which had personality-centered covers, some
Life covers included photos of “things” such as animals, nature scenes,
aircraft, and machinery. Time, as Johnson and Christ pointed out, has
practiced “personality journalism.”
Almost invariably, Time’s cover stories have been built around an
individual. Life, on the
other hand, had a broader purpose: “To
see strange things - machines, armies, multitudes, shadows in the jungle and on
the moon; to see man’s work - his paintings, towers and discoveries; to see things
thousands of miles away, things hidden behind walls and within rooms, things
dangerous to come to,” as Luce
wrote in his prospectus. Therefore, the same methodology that Johnson
and Christ used in their Time
studies will not work for this
study of Life.
It is necessary, therefore, to analyze both type and
theme of cover image.
This study is also distinguished from the Time studies because its
primary purpose is not to see how gender or another social norm was reflected on
the magazine’s covers (although that is a secondary purpose). Its primary purpose is determine whether
the magazine followed the “cultural artifact” goals of its prospectus - to reflect
the diversity of the world - or whether its editors succumbed to commercialism and
made their covers a marketing tool.
Type
of image:
For
covers with people on them, “type” included gender, American citizen or
non-American, and race (white or African-American). The number of people up to two appearing
on the cover was also recorded. Any
cover with three or more people was recorded as a “crowd.” The rationale for
this designation was simplicity in coding. Gender designation is more cumbersome
and less meaningful when three or more people are depicted on the cover. Larger numbers of cover persons also
raises the necessity of distinguishing between “central” and “non-central” cover
persons. The purpose of
distinguishing between American and non-American cover persons was to measure
cover images against Luce’s stated purpose of making Life “the show-book
of the world.” Did Life
showcase the world or did it primarily showcase Americans on its covers?
One expectation is that international representation will increase over
time. This expectation was also
held by Johnson and Christ, who hypothesized that “international representation
would increase through the decades as the USA became more cosmopolitan and
international in its orientation.” [26]
Measurement of gender and race will also compare cover images with Luce’s stated
purpose for the magazine: “To see life, to see the world; to eyewitness great
events; to watch the faces of the poor and the gestures of the proud. To see strange things - machines, armies,
multitudes, shadows in the jungle and on the moon; to see man’s work - his
paintings, towers and discoveries; to see things thousands of miles away, things
hidden behind walls and within rooms, things dangerous to come to; the women
that men love and many children; to see and to take pleasure in seeing; to see
and be amazed; to see and be instructed….”
Luce’s goal of “diversity” was prescient of late 20th century social
trends, and this research will seek to determine how well he fulfilled that
goal.
Since
Luce also wanted the magazine to “see strange things” and “to see man’s work,” a
large number of covers display non-human images. These non-human images were divided into
four types: animals (non-human), nature (any object appearing in nature);
technology (any humanly created object); art (painting, sculpture or drawing),
and “other.” Each cover type was defined according to
strict criteria (see appendix).
Theme
of image:
The theme was expressed by the image as well as the single, brief cover line
that appeared on all of its covers.
Fifteen themes were identified in a pilot study of the covers. The variety of these themes also reflect
Luce’s broad goals of making the magazine a “show-case of the
world. <![endif]>
1 - Business/professions:
Covers depicting business and commerce themes as well as people identified in
any particular occupational or career category.
2 - Leisure or recreational activities: Includes
anything people do with their leisure time.
3 - Movies/entertainers: Entertainers, including
movie stars, singers, dancers, comedians, etc.
4 - Politics, government or government leaders:
Includes elective and appointive office holders as well as candidates for public
office. Also includes the British
and other European nobility.
5 - Religion or religious leaders: Includes leaders
of organized religions or any issue involving religion.
6 - Organized sports and athletics: Includes
organized amateur, collegiate or professional athletes.
7 - Science and technology: Includes a wide domain of
physical or biological sciences, engineering, or scientific research
advances. Includes space and space
travel.
8 - War/military or military leaders: Must be related
to specific wars or international conflicts. Does not include civil unrest or
protests in other countries.
9 - Education: May be related to education at any
level and may include students, teachers, or administrators.
10 - Fashion: A focus on fashion trends and
style.
11 - History: A focus on any event, activity or
person that occurred earlier in history.
Also includes Life anniversary
issues and “year in review” issues.
12 - Crime and law enforcement: Self-explanatory. May
include law enforcement officers or those accused or convicted of
crimes.
13 - Geographic places: Must include a named
city, state, country, or location.
Doesn’t include general outdoor scenes that don’t have a proper
name.
14 - Civil rights movement: Any photos dealing with
the civil rights movement, which was mostly in the 1950s and 1960s.
15 - Other: Any theme or topic that cannot be easily
categorized in any of the other categories. If a cover theme wasn’t easily obvious,
it was included in this category.
Covers were divided into two groups, 1936-1959 and 1960-2000, for
comparison purposes. These two
groups were labeled as the “early years” and the “later years.” While 1936-1960
included only 23 of Life’s 64 years, it also included 1,196
(or more than half) of all 2,128 issues. The magazine was published monthly
instead of weekly during its last 22 years.
To ensure accuracy and validity, a second coder was employed to do a
content analysis of the same 2,128 issues.
Since each issue involved two content decisions - type of cover image and
theme of cover image - 4,256 choices had to be made by the two coders. Their first comparison of figures
resulted in an inter-coder reliability of about 85 percent. The two coders discussed differences and
refined the definitions for type and theme of images. After making changes as a result of more
clearly defined criteria, a final inter-coder reliability of 97.55 percent was
reached.
How can the “cultural artifact” or “marketing tool” approach to cover
choice be verified? If covers
followed a cultural artifact model, then they will accurately reflect cultural
demographics and trends. In that
case, a majority of the following three expectations relating to cover images
will be met:
a) Because of the civil rights movement, the number
of African-Americans on covers will increase significantly after 1960 compared
with earlier years.
b) Because of the women’s movement, the number of
women on covers will increase significantly after 1960 compared with earlier
years.
c) Because of increasing globalization and
international travel, the number of non-Americans on covers will increase
significantly after 1960 compared with earlier years.
If Life covers were used as a
marketing tool, then the following expectations will be met:
a) In all decades, a majority of covers in all
decades will portray women.
b) In all decades, the number of African-Americans
on covers will not change significantly.
c) In all decades, the majority of the covers will
portray Americans and not change significantly.
Results
The results show some distinct differences between covers from 1936-1959
and covers from 1960-2000. Table 1
shows a dramatic decline in the percentage of covers with people on them and an
80 percent increase in the percentage of covers without people. “Without people” covers included those
showing animals, nature scenes, technology, or various forms of art. “With people” covers declined from 85.5
percent between 1936-1959 to 73.9 percent between 1960-2000, while “without
people” covers increased from 14.5 percent to 26.1 percent. These results coincided with dramatic
declines in Life’s circulation during its later
years.
Who got covered on Life? Thirty-six covers from these 64 years
portrayed one or more of the Kennedy family. John F. Kennedy was on 25 covers, while
Jackie edged him out to appear on 26 and earn the number one spot. Robert F. Kennedy appeared on five
covers while Edward Kennedy was on nine.
Rose Kennedy even made a solo appearance on one cover.
Richard Nixon ranked third behind JFK and Jackie in number of appearances
by a single individual with 15.
Ronald Reagan had 11. But
Marilyn Monroe beat him with 13 cover appearances, while Elizabeth Taylor was
close behind at nine. Barbra
Streisand made four cover appearances.
Nikita Krushchev appeared on more covers (9) than Winston Churchill (7),
Dwight D. Eisenhower (7), Franklin Delano Roosevelt (5) or Bill Clinton (4). The
Reverends Billy Graham and Martin Luther King Jr. each made it onto two covers,
while various popes appeared on eight covers between 1936-2000. Celebrities
never appearing on a Life cover
included Elvis Presley, Monhandas K. Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Jimmy Carter, George
H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Gerald Ford.
Royalty, especially female members of the British royalty, were favorite
cover figures for Life. Queen Elizabeth I appeared on two covers
while Queen Elizabeth II appeared on six either before or after her coronation
as queen. Her sister, Princess
Margaret, appeared on five while Princess Diana appeared on six. Princess Anne and Princess Grace of
Monaco both appeared once, as did the queens of Iran and Egypt. The only male
royalty figures to appear on Life
covers were Prince Charles (twice), Prince Juan Carlos of Spain (twice) and the
kings of Saudi Arabia and Romania.
Life
solidly backed the World War II effort and included 132 covers on war themes
between 1941 and 1945. The
subject matter ranged from depictions of airplanes, ships and battle scenes to
regiments, military leaders, and ordinary soldiers in many settings. The strong war coverage continued with
the Korean and Vietnam wars, although it wasn’t as frequent as World War
II. Life devoted its cover
and entire March 1991 issue to the Gulf War. “Life invented photojournalism,”
wrote Managing Editor James R. Gaines in that issue. He continued: “Over the
last half century LIFE photographers such as Gene Smith, Carl Mydans, David
Duncan, Paul Schutzer and Larry Burrows at great personal risk (Schutzer and
Burrows were killed in action) recorded the panoply and tragedy of war in some
of the greatest combat photographs ever taken.” [27]
Gender
The
most surprising result of the study is that the number of covers portraying
women declined dramatically between 1936-1959 and 1960-2000 (Table 2). An average of 57.7 percent of
“early” covers (1936-1959) portrayed women compared with 44.3 percent of “later
covers (1960-2000). These were
“women only” covers since “couples” were excluded from gender comparisons. The number of covers with men increased
conversely from 42.3 percent to 55.7 percent.
The easiest explanation for this surprising finding is that a high
percentage of 1940s and 1950s covers depicted fashion trends, movie stars or
other celebrity entertainers. While
there was no occupational breakdown, the majority of women on covers were movie
stars. For example, Bette Davis (January 13, 1939), Katharine Hepburn (January
6, 1941), Shirley Temple (March 30, 1942), Judy Garland (December 11, 1943), and
Gina Lollabridgida (September 3, 1951) are some of the best-known stars
appearing on Life’s covers during its early years.
These cover themes depicted women in entertainment-related roles much more
frequently than men. These cover themes were much less common after Life’s rebirth in 1978, when covers
tended to focus more on issues than on people.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh was the first well-known woman to appear on a Life cover who wasn’t a movie star or
model. She appeared on the May 15,
1937 cover, while Eleanor Roosevelt was the second when she was on the May 29,
1939, cover. Like Lindbergh and Roosevelt, however, most other women on Life’s covers were spouses of well-known
men. While a few covers included
women sports celebrities, no cover ever included a woman in a leadership role
such as president of a corporation or university. Besides the British royalty figures, the
only woman political leader to appear on a Life cover was the New York
Congresswoman Bella Abzug in June 9, 1972.
Race
The portrayal of African-Americans on Life covers did increase dramatically
between 1936-1959 and 1960-2000 (Table 3).
The percentage of covers portraying African-Americans jumped from 1.0
percent during the early years (a total of seven covers) to 6.4 percent during
the later years (a total of 27 covers).
The only cover to portray an African-American between 1936-1939 showed a
laborer sitting on the back of a farm wagon of watermelons being harvested from
the field. No African-Americans appeared on covers during the 1940s. The six African-Americans portrayed
during the 1950s were all sports figures: Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella
(twice), Willie Mays, and Sugar Ray Robinson and his boxing ring opponent. The first non-athlete African-American
was entertainer Dorothy Dandridge in 1954.
The second was Mrs. Medgar Evers, who appeared on Life’s cover after the 1963 murder of her
husband, while Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t make a Life cover until 1966.
Nationality
The number of covers portraying Americans vs. Non-Americans remained
constant between early and later years.
The percentage of covers portraying Americans was 80.6 percent between
1930-1959 and 83.3 percent between 1960-2000. Therefore, the research expectation that
international covers would increase as the USA became more cosmopolitan was not
reflected on Life’s covers.
Themes
“Movies and entertainers” was the most frequent cover theme with the
exception of the 1940s and 1990s. During the 1940s, almost 25 percent of all
covers depicted wartime themes, while “science and technology” led the 1990s.
These trends are depicted in Table 5.
A more convenient way of looking at the themes is to divide them into
“serious” and “light” themes. For
the purposes of this study, a “light” theme depicts an activity in which
consumers participate primarily for leisure and recreational purposes. The five “light” themes that were
identified included: 1) recreational activities; 2) movies/entertainers; 3)
sports/athletics; 4) fashion trends; and 5) geographical places. Although professional entertainers and
athletes earn their livelihood from these endeavors, their purpose is primarily
to entertain their “customers.”
Here are some examples:
1)
Recreational
activities: a night-time fireworks display illuminating the Casino, Hotel de
Paris, and International Sporting Club at Monte Carlo (February 28,1938)
2)
Movies/entertainers:
three young actresses (Patricia Neal, Susan Douglas, and Patricia Kirkland)
crouched on a snowsled with the cover line “Three Broadway Actresses” (February
3, 1947)
3)
Sports/athletics:
Swedish skating star Vivi-Anne Hulten performing at Rockefeller Center (January
3,1938)
4)
Fashion
trends: an unidentified model wearing a see-through veil with the cover line
“Spring Veils” (March 24,1941)
5) Geographical
places: an unidentified Indonesian girl with the cover line “The New Nation of
Indonesia” (February 13, 1950)
“Serious” themes, on the other hand, reflect the fields of endeavor in
which ordinary people earn their living.
They also include the coverage of governmental affairs at all levels,
social and criminal justice issues, as well as medical, scientific, and
technological advances. Nine
“serious” themes were identified in the cover images: 1) business/careers; 2)
politics/government; 3) religion; 4) science/technology; 5) war/military; 6)
education; 7) history; 8) crime/law enforcement; and 9) civil rights. Here are some examples:
1)
Business/careers:
closeup of Jane Pauley with the cover line: “How Jane Pauley got what she
wanted - time for her kids, prime time for herself” (June 1989)
2)
Politics/government:
Prince Charles in his Welsh Guards Uniform with the cover line “Prince Charles
is 30” (November 1978)
3)
Religion: a
statue of Mary with the cover line: “Two thousand years after the Nativity, the
mother of Jesus is more beloved, powerful and controversial than ever” (December
1996)
4)
Science/technology:
a space photo of the earth with the cover line “Behold the earth: Startling new
photos show our planet as we’ve never seen it before” (April 1992)
5)
War/military: a
volunteer plane-spotter (Robert J. Boyd, a general store owner) on duty at an
outdoor observatory station in Kent, Connecticut, during a minus 20-degree
evening with the cover line: “Plane Spotter.” (February 8, 1943)
6)
Education:
photos of two administrators and a teacher with the cover line “Collision course
in the high schools” (May 16, 1969)
7)
History: a
statue of Marcus Aurelius, last Emperor of Rome’s Golden Age, with the cover
line “The Caesars: Madmen, Statesmen and Saints” (June 3,1966)
8)
Crime/law
enforcement: a close-up of a loaded pistol with the cover line “Guns are out of
control” (April 1982)
9)
Civil rights: a
photo of marchers from Selma to Montgomery with police standing by as onlookers
(March 19, 1965)
This grouping reveals that the “light” themes dominated the 1940s, 1950s,
and 1960s while the “serious” themes dominated the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. The serious themes averaged 41.2 percent
during the early years and 59.8 percent during the later years. The light themes averaged percent during the early years and 38.1
percent during the later years.
Life
was a different and more serious magazine during the 1990s, at least according
to its covers. “Science/technology”
themes reached 30 percent - almost double the average for that category from
1936-1989. “Movies and
entertainers” dropped to 16.3 percent during the 1990s, its lowest for any
decade. “History” covers soared to 14.7 percent while “fashion trends” plummeted
to zero. While it became a more
“intellectual” magazine in its cover themes, circulation and profitability
continued to decline.
Discussion
Life’s
covers followed the marketing tool model during the early years. The most typical cover portrayed a
beautiful white American woman who was a movie star or model wearing the latest
fashion item. Three
categories - leisure activities, movies/entertainers, and fashion trends - accounted
for 44 percent of Life’s covers in the 1930s, 42 percent in
the 1940s, and 50 percent in the 1950s.
This finding supports those of Johnson and Christ, who wrote in their
1989 study:
Three
hundred forty-six women were categorized into 25 occupations. By far the largest occupation was the
artist/entertainer occupation being represented 128 times (37%). Of the 128, 96 were movie
stars/actresses, 17 were opera singers, 10 were singers (other than opera), 3
were ballerinas or dancers, and there was 1 painter/sculptor and 1 conductor.
[28
The primary exception to these typical covers was the war effort, which
Life supported with an unbending
patriotism in 132 covers.
Only one of the three hypotheses for the cultural artifact model was met
by this study, and that is even debatable:
a) Because of the civil rights movement, the number
of African-Americans on covers will increase significantly after 1960 compared
to earlier years.
A total of 27 covers between 1960 and 2000 portrayed African-Americans
while only seven did between 1936 and 1959 (Table 3). Of those 27, 15 occurred during the
1960s when civil rights turmoil was at its zenith. Almost all of the African-Americans
portrayed on covers prior to 1960s were sports celebrities. Overall, Life’s portrayal of African-Americans was
rather dismal.
Two of the three expectations for the cultural artifact model were
clearly not met:
b) Because of the women’s movement, the number of
women on covers will increase significantly after 1960 compared to earlier
years.
c) Because of increasing globalization and
international travel, the number of non-Americans on covers will increase
significantly after 1960 compared to earlier years.
As we have seen, the number of covers with women (Table 2) declined after
1960. In the 1950s, 64 percent of
covers portrayed women with an average of 57.7 percent for 1936 to 1959. That figure dropped to 40 percent during
the 1960s and averaged 44 percent between 1960 and 2000. There is no clear explanation for this
surprising drop during the same years as the ascendancy of the women’s
movement. It also contradicts the
findings of Johnson and Christ who found that women appearing on
Time’s covers increased:
“Women were represented the most in the 1970s (113 covers). This was followed by the 1980s (90
covers), the 1950s (68 covers), and 1960s (67 covers),” and the fewest number of
women on Time covers in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, they concluded. [29]
Finally,
the percentage of Americans vs. non-Americans on covers (Table 4) increased only
modestly from 80.6 percent to 83.3 percent.
The support for the
marketing tool model is stronger, particularly during the early years between
1936 and 1959:
a) In all decades, a majority of covers in all
decades will portray women.
b) In all decades, the number of African-Americans
on covers will not change significantly.
c) In all decades, the majority of the covers will
portray Americans and not change significantly.
If you apply these hypotheses to the three decades between 1936-1959,
then all three are clearly met. The
majority of covers portrayed Americans and women and the percentage portraying
African-Americans did not change.
Covers for the later years are more mixed and difficult to analyze
according to clear trends. These
years included the five-year hiatus (1973-1977) when Life was not published. After 1978, the magazine had new editors
and a different playing field.
Since television, the rules had changed. The most obvious change was the more
serious tone of its covers. The
“serious” themes now dominated the covers:
Politics/government; science/technology; history; crime/law
enforcement. Movie/entertainer
covers were down as were covers depicting leisure activities, sports, fashion,
and geographic places. Serious
themes now accounted for almost 60 percent of all covers, while light themes
reached just 38 percent coverage.
Life’s
move from a marketing tool to a cultural artifact model probably did hurt its
single-copy (newsstand) sales. Table 7 presents Life’s single-copy and
subscription sales from 1980 to 1998 and compares them with the magazine
industry as a whole. It shows that Life’s single copy sales declined 48
percent during these 18 years, compared to 30 percent for all A.B.C. member
magazines. But it would be going too far to suggest that Life’s cover
choices had much to do with either its 1972 or 2000 closures. Many factors
contributed to its demise, which are beyond the scope or purpose of this
paper.
Conclusion
Throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, Life broke the marketing rules for
cover sales and also failed as a “cultural artifact” in reflecting the
increasing diversity of the United States.
It put “things” on its covers more frequently than people; men more
frequently than women; and politicians more frequently than celebrity athletes.
The editors didn’t listen to the cover-choosing advice of their Time-Life
colleague, People magazine editor
Richard Stolley, who said: “Young is better than old. Pretty is better than
ugly. Rich is better than poor. TV
is better than music. Music is better than movies. Movies are better than
sports. Anything is better than politics.” [30]
It also did a poor job
in following the dictates of its founder in being a “Show-case for the
world.”
In some ways, the early years of Life more clearly reflected the
philosophy of its founder Henry R. Luce, who died in 1967. He felt that the editors should search
diligently for two somewhat elusive qualities he called “charm” and
“relaxation.” “Charm is the most
important quality which Life needs
which cannot be extracted from the ordinary processes of journalistic
thought. We find that we must
definitely plot and plan for Charm.
Charm does not come naturally out of news. And the Charm which comes naturally out
of the camera is mostly moonlit landscape stuff which we cannot use. Yet we intend that every issue of Life shall have the quality of
Charm.”
Speaking of relaxation, Luce wrote: “I think we may also recognize that
Life can properly be a relaxing as
well as a stimulating experience to the reader. The relation lies partly in this: that
Life’s pattern of news and photographic comment is so different from all
other patterns of journalism. All
week long a man is harassed and his brow is beetled by the headlines of the
Times or Daily Mirror - the dreadful war in Europe or the sex-murder
in Hollywood…and then along comes Life and its whole angle on news and
news value is so entirely different that he takes a holiday from his almost
continuous mental preoccupation with the other news patterns.” [31]
Any
effort to conclusively analyze, much less quantify, the reasons for Life’s eventual failure will end in
futility. One cannot conclude that
Life failed because its covers were no longer a “marketing tool” or did
not include sufficient numbers of women, African-Americans, or other
nationalities.
George
Story never knew how close the end of Life magazine followed the
conclusion of his own life. He
enjoyed his fame as “Life’s baby,” but as George Story’s world changed
over 64 years, so did Life’s. Perhaps Life had outlived its
purpose and died a natural death.
After all, it was 64 years old and few magazines live longer than
that. When it was young, it was a
“gateway to the world” for Story’s parents and Americans who rarely traveled
outside the boundaries of their own state.
By the 1990s, Americans had inexpensive air travel as well as television
and the Internet to give them the spectacular world views that only Life
once provided. Maybe Life
didn’t follow all the rules it was supposed to follow, maybe it didn’t watch its
diet and exercise properly, but it sure had a good time. And so did those of us who loved
it.
ENDNOTES
