It is fascinating to see the similarities and differences between American culture in the 1920s and today. After examining an issue of TIME Magazine from May 26, 1924, many of these are apparent. While the overall concept of the magazine is the same today as it was then, the newly created TIME of the 1920s was formatted very differently than what we see today.
For starters, the picture on the cover of the magazine was hand drawn. The featured person, Sir James Craig, the Premier of Ireland, did not have a story written entirely about him, rather he was one of the people mentioned in the Foreign Affairs section. Another article in this section that solidified the date in my mind discussed Benito Mussolini and his brother, Arnaldo. Seeing the mention of Mussolini made me realize how long ago this magazine was published.
The format of the publication was very different than what we see in modern times. The layout of the pages resembled a newspaper or a textbook, but with much fewer pictures and ads. It was divided into many simple sections, many of which do not exist today. For example, there was a section on medicine, discussing the harms of carbon monoxide. There was also an Aeronautics section, celebrating the first crossing of the Pacific Ocean by air. It is astonishing to think about a time when this was not a common occurrence.
There were several other sections that had interesting articles, showing the changes that have occurred in American society since the 1920s. A section on Religion clarified the Methodist Church’s stance on divorce and remarriage. It stated that a divorced person could only remarry in certain instances, involving death of a spouse or being cheated on. Another Church organization made it clear that they found all war to be morally wrong, regardless of the cause behind it. It was very interesting to read this section, and to see the changes that have occurred in these opinions since the 1920s.
Another interesting choice in layout design was putting all of the advertisements at the end of the issue. Aside from the humorous aspect of the ads- they were selling garters and summer camp for girls-it was astonishing to see so few of them, and to have them grouped together away from the information in the rest of the magazine. I definitely see the benefits of including the ads in the article section of the magazine, and can understand why this part of the layout has changed over time.
Several of the articles offered information that is not as widely published today. For example, in the National Affairs section, there was a list of what Congress had accomplished over a certain period of time. The presentation of these facts was much more straightforward than articles today, which are often muddled by opinions.
When there were opinion articles or reviews in the magazine, however, they were just as blunt as facts. In the Books section, a criticism of the book The Contrast by Hillaire Belloc describes the author’s style as being “as irritating as possible for 267 pages.” This kind of a remark is hard to find in book reviews, or any article, today, where people are mostly concerned with being unbiased and unoffensive. The handful of comments like that one were humorous, and refreshing when compared to the sometimes opinion-less reporting of today. I realize that I have praised both the unbiased and strongly opinionated nature of this issue of TIME, and I want to clarify that what I enjoyed was the well-placed nature of these two extremes. It is very hard to balance the two, and I was impressed with the writers’ ability to do so. This could have been a fluke, and I could have looked at a particularly good issue of the magazine, however I think a great deal of it is a reflection on the style of writing of that time.
A final detail that I noticed about the issue of TIME that I read was that there were no bylines in the stories. There was a brief list of contributors on one of the pages, however no specific article was credited to any specific writer. I found this very interesting, and I believe it is a reflection on the increased individualism of our culture today. We are constantly concerned with receiving credit for every accomplishment, whereas our predecessors found it important to focus on the overall product, not each individual’s contribution.
