— Ch. 1 · Progressive Origins And Early Years —
The New Republic.
~4 min read · Ch. 1 of 5
The first issue of The New Republic landed on newsstands on the 7th of November 1914. Herbert Croly and Walter Lippmann founded the magazine with financial backing from heiress Dorothy Payne Whitney and her husband Willard Straight. Their goal was to balance humanitarian liberalism with scientific analysis during a time of rapid economic change. The publication quickly became a voice for governmental interventionism in both domestic and foreign affairs. By 1917, TNR urged American entry into World War I alongside the Allies. During the interwar years, the magazine maintained a generally positive view of the Soviet Union and Joseph Stalin until the Cold War began in 1947. Henry A. Wallace, a former Vice President, left his leftist editorship to run for president on the Progressive ticket that same year. Throughout the 1950s, the publication criticized both Soviet foreign policy and domestic anticommunism like McCarthyism. In the 1960s, the magazine opposed the Vietnam War while often criticizing the New Left movement. Eric Alterman later described the magazine as having a certain cachet as the voice of re-invigorated liberalism. President John F. Kennedy was photographed boarding Air Force One holding a copy of the magazine.
Peretz Era And Editorial Shifts
Martin Peretz purchased The New Republic for $380,000 in March 1974 from Gilbert A. Harrison. Peretz was a Harvard University lecturer who had broken with the New Left over its support of Third World liberationist movements. He fired editor Harrison by 1975 after becoming annoyed at having his own articles rejected. Much of the staff including Walter Pincus, Stanley Karnow, and Doris Grumbach were replaced largely by recent Harvard graduates lacking journalistic experience. Peretz served as editor until 1979 but remained editor-in-chief until 2012. The magazine endorsed moderate Republican John B. Anderson in 1980 rather than Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter. Michael Kinsley became editor at age 28 while still attending law school between 1979 and 1981. Hendrik Hertzberg alternated as editor during this era bringing a more left-leaning perspective. Leon Wieseltier reinvented the back of the book section along lines similar to The New York Review of Books. Alterman called Wieseltier's selection probably Peretz's single most significant positive achievement in running the magazine.