November 23, 1936: Life Magazine Premieres

November 23, 1936: Life magazine begins publication. Henry Luce, publisher of Time magazine, bought the rights to the name Life, and used it as the title of a picture-based news magazine.

The first cover showed the Fort Peck Dam in Montana, photographed by Margaret Bourke-White, one of the few well-known female journalists of the era.  The first series of photographs were the sequence of the birth of a baby, the last showing the doctor holding the baby up by the legs, with the caption, "LIFE BEGINS." Ha, ha.

The red border made Life iconic. And some of the imagines contained within became so as well. The best-known was Alfred Eisenstaedt's photo of a soldier kissing a nurse in Times Square on V-J Day, August 14, 1945.

Life followed Luce's personal views. The son of Protestant missionaries, he was born in China while they were stationed there. As a result, he was a very conservative Republican and an anti-Communist with a strong interest in China. As a result, he supported the Republican candidate for President in every election, and used his magazines, including Life, to push for the overthrow of Red China after 1949.

Fortunately, Luce hated fascism in equal measure, and so, in 1940, he wanted to make sure that the Republican nominee for President would be someone who would stand up to Adolf Hitler, in case, as Luce would have otherwise preferred, that candidate beat FDR as he ran for a 3rd term.

So he plucked Wendell Willkie, a businessman with no political experience, out of near obscurity, and promoted him relentlessly before the Republican Convention. More than any other person, Luce made Willkie a potential President; more than any other publication, Life made him one. But FDR won, and Luce put him on the next cover, with the caption "THE WINNER." He included a quote from Republican newspaper baron William Allen White: "We who hate your gaudy guts salute you."

Luce remained a staunch Republican. In 1950, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the leading General of World War II, was appointed the president of Columbia University in New York. Luce put him on the cover of Life, with the caption, "PRESIDENT EISENHOWER." It was a shot across the bow at President Harry Truman, who had succeeded FDR, and ended up not running in 1952. Eisenhower won 2 terms.

The rising cost of ink and paper, the continued growth of television news, and the 1967 death of guiding light Luce, led to the magazine's downfall. Time, Inc. decided to stop publishing life on a weekly basis at the end of 1972. But in 1978, it was brought back as a monthly, and occasionally issued special commemorative issues. That held until the May 2000 issue.

The baby from the 1st issue? Fittingly, he grew up to become a journalist. And his name was appropriate to his profession: George Story. He suffered a heart attack and died on April 4, 2000, allowing his obituary to be printed in the last issue, with the headline, "A Life Ends."

*

November 23, 1936 was a Monday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And while the NHL season was underway, no games were scheduled. So there were no scores on this historic day.