The Century Magazine
The Century Magazine was an illustrated monthly magazine first published in the United States in 1881 by The Century Company of New York City, which had been bought in that year by Roswell Smith and renamed by him after the Century Association. It was the successor of Scribner's Monthly Magazine. It was merged into The Forum in 1930.
History
The initial editor was to have been Scribner's editor and co-owner Josiah G. Holland, but he died prior to the appearance of the first issue. He was succeeded by Richard Watson Gilder, the managing editor of Scribner's, who would go on to helm The Century for 28 years. Gilder largely continued the mixture of literature, history, current events, and high-quality illustrations that Holland had used at Scribner's.The magazine was very successful during the 19th century, most notably for a series of articles about the American Civil War which ran for three years during the 1880s. It included reminiscences of 230 participants from all ranks of the service on both sides of the conflict. According to an author writing in The New York Times, the publication of The Century "made New-York, instead of London, the centre of the illustrated periodicals published in the English language…" The magazine was also a notable publisher of fiction, presenting excerpts of Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in 1884 and 1885 and Henry James' The Bostonians.
Upon Gilder's death in 1909, Robert Underwood Johnson replaced him as editor. According to Arthur John, the magazine's "later history was marked by sudden shifts in content, format, and editorial direction." Glenn Frank was editor from 1921 to 1925, a period during which The Century was known for its editorials on current events and began to cut back on illustrations, which were eliminated after Frank left the magazine. In 1929, due to competition from cheaper magazines and newspapers, The Century became a quarterly, and in 1930 it was merged with The Forum. At the time it folded, The Century had 20,000 subscribers, less than a tenth of its peak circulation of the late nineteenth century. Scribner's Monthly Magazine, the periodical that became The Century in 1881, should not be confused with the Scribner's Magazine that began publication in 1887.
The noted critic and editor Frank Crowninshield briefly served as the magazine's art editor.
Philosophy and political positions
The tone and content of The Century changed over its long history. It began as an Evangelical Christian publication, but over time began to speak to a more general educated audience as it developed into the largest periodical in the country.Religion
Novelist and poet Josiah G. Holland was one of the three original founders of Scribner's Monthly and wrote regular editorials for the periodical, setting the tone for the magazine's content. As Holland was deeply religious, Scribner's to a great extent reflected the views and concerns of the Evangelical Christian community. While hostile towards sectarianism within Protestantism, Scribner's initially took a strong stand against both Catholicism and those who doubted the divinity of Christ. In the first issue, under the heading "Papa and the Dogma", Holland claimed that it was freedom that made the Protestant nations of Europe strong while their Catholic neighbors were, as a result of their religion, in a state of decay. Less than one year later, the magazine attacked the skepticism of Henry David Thoreau. Mormon polygamy was also a frequent target. One contributor traveled to Utah to observe the Mormon settlement there and argued that the new sect would have to end its practice of plural marriage if it were to survive and American control could be exercised over the western territories.At the same time, Scribner's Monthly, being non-dogmatic in its Protestantism, expressed little hostility towards modern science. For example, a three-part series discussed how believing Christians should meet the intellectual challenges of religious skepticism, and in 1874 two writers engaged one another in a debate over whether Christians should attempt to prove the divinity of Christ through science.
By the end of the 1870s, however, Scribner's had departed from its original Evangelical orientation. An April 1879 editorial declared all seekers of truth, whether believing Christians or not, to be allies, regarding this new view as simply an application of the Golden Rule. Catholics were said to have just as much to teach Protestants as Protestants had to teach Catholics. After the magazine became The Century in 1881, it continued to hold onto this secular outlook under Gilder. The break with the past was reflected in the magazine's changing treatment of the question of evolution. In 1875, Scribner's argued that there was insufficient evidence to conclude that Darwinism was true and attributed its wide acceptance to a contemporary bias towards novel ideas, even though the author did not on principle reject the idea that proof could be forthcoming. Upon the death of Charles Darwin in 1883, however, The Century published a laudatory tribute to the scientist written by Alfred Wallace. The magazine remained secular into its later days, in 1923 criticizing the "poisonous dogmatism" of the thought of William Jennings Bryan and what the magazine saw as his religious fundamentalism. Over the years, The Century published works by a large number of writers who were agnostics or atheists, including famous skeptic Bertrand Russell.
American nationalism
From the very beginning of his tenure as editor in 1881 to his death in 1909, The Century reflected the ideals of Gilder. He sought to create and help shape a "refined" American high culture, often contributing his own poetry to that end.An unsigned May 1885 editorial expressed pride over the belief of the staff that the periodical had achieved wide circulation while remaining a quality product. This reflected the view that as a general matter there was usually a tradeoff between quality and quantity. The Century was generally seen as a conservative magazine and hoped to promote reconciliation between the North and South after the trauma of the Civil War. According to J. Arthur Bond, the magazine was instrumental in creating and shaping post-war American nationalism. In the words of one contemporary, Gilder's "spirited and tireless endeavor was to give the organic life of the American people purity of character and nobility of expression." During his tenure as editor, he promoted patriotism and the glorification of American historical figures. Seeing itself as having an "elevating" mission, its "mixture of nationalism and cultural advocacy informed even the most 'ordinary' of the magazine's articles." Often touching on many of these themes, Theodore Roosevelt wrote as a regular contributor to the magazine over three decades, a span which included one article he published while serving as president. Gilder developed relationships with several contemporary prominent figures, including a close friendship with Grover Cleveland which he wrote about upon the death of the former president.
Concerns over national unity and the preservation of traditional American culture were reflected in the magazine's writings on immigration. An 1884 article discussed the composition and geographical distribution of immigrant populations, and expressed optimism over the prospect of the newer Americans assimilating into the larger population. At the same time, the article warned that measures should be taken against potential threats to national unity through fractionalization. As immigration increased over the next few decades, however, The Century became more alarmed over its effects on the future of the country, citing concerns over, among other matters, crime, illiteracy, and the overpopulation of cities. In 1904, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge took to the pages of the magazine to argue for the importance of keeping out "undesirable" immigrants. Twenty years later, editor Glenn Frank attacked the Ku Klux Klan and other nativists, but nonetheless wrote that "he hour for very severe restrictions on immigration has come…" The same author returned to some of the same themes when he again attacked the KKK several months later for both its religious and racial doctrines.
Reconstruction and civil rights
In the immediate post-Reconstruction era, contributors to The Century debated what should be done about the postwar South and the newly free slaves, generally advocating for amicable relations between the regions and national unity. In 1873 and 1874, Scribner's ran a number of articles under the title "The Great South," a series which lasted fourteen issues. Based on Edward King's travels, the author's accounts generally portrayed the region in a sympathetic light and the series was warmly received by Southerners.In 1876, Scribner's published a eulogy to Robert E. Lee, along with an editorial postscript praising the spirit of "sectional friendliness" of the piece.
On the question of the freedmen, a wide variety of contemporary views were represented. Writing for Scribner's in 1874, one author argued that blacks were unfit to be schooled with white children. On the other hand, an 1885 article by George W. Cable despaired over what he saw as the failure to protect the rights of southern blacks after the Civil War and argued that this was the result of the former confederate states evading federal law. Henry W. Grady, responding a few months later, disputed the earlier author's characterization of the situation, claiming that while legal rights had been granted, southern whites would never accept social integration between the races. Cable's criticisms of the ex-Confederacy also drew a rebuke by Robert Lewis Dabney.
Even when sympathetic to the cause of the newly freed slaves, writers who argued for helping them usually did so on paternalistic grounds. Bishop T. U. Dudley, for example, expressed doubt that much could be done to elevate the status of American blacks, but argued that Christian principles required helping them to the greatest extent possible.
The question of how much government policy could do to improve the circumstances of the former slaves continued to be debated over the decades. By the turn of the century, the debates were conducted in the language of science. Robert Bennett Bean, a medical doctor, published a 1906 article arguing that social policy should be based on realistic assessments of the relative mental capacities of blacks and whites. He claimed that blacks had, on average, smaller brains than Asians or Caucasians, a finding he attributed to heredity. Similarly, Charles Francis Adams Jr. spent two years in Egypt and the Sudan and referenced his experiences to argue in 1906 that the unfortunate circumstances of American blacks were mainly due to inherently low capabilities rather than history. In the same issue, however, the editors felt it necessary to mention the dissenting view of Franz Boas, who had painted a more optimistic picture of the potential of Africans in a different periodical two years earlier.
Booker T. Washington contributed four articles to the magazine in the first decade of the twentieth century, including one on "Heroes in Black Skins." and another that discussed efforts of blacks to become homeowners. A 1903 editorial sang the praises of Washington, calling him the "Moses of his people" and contrasting him favorably with W.E.B. Du Bois.
Reflecting the magazine's later shift leftward, Du Bois himself contributed an article to The Century in 1923. Several editorials around that time criticized the revived Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s. Frank Tannenbaum, for example, wrote that the Klan of the Reconstruction era "was a reflex of the vindictiveness of Northern politicians and of the unscrupulous carpet-baggers who swooped down upon the South as a vulture upon a wounded and stricken victim." But the contemporary Klan, according to Tannenbaum, had no such justification and simply reflected fears of change and other pathologies of segments of the white population.