The Atlantic is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.[3]
It was founded in 1857 in Boston as The Atlantic Monthly, a literary and cultural magazine that published leading writers' commentary on education, the
abolition of slavery, and other major political issues of that time. Its founders included
Francis H. Underwood[4][5] and prominent writers
Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.,
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
Harriet Beecher Stowe, and
John Greenleaf Whittier.[6][7]James Russell Lowell was its first editor.[8] In addition, The Atlantic Monthly Almanac was an annual
almanac published for Atlantic Monthly readers during the 19th and 20th centuries.[9] A change of name was not officially announced when the format first changed from a strict monthly (appearing 12 times a year) to a slightly lower frequency. It was a monthly magazine for 144 years until 2001, when it published 11 issues; it has published 10 issues yearly since 2003. It dropped "Monthly" from the cover beginning with the January/February 2004 issue, and officially changed the name in 2007.
After experiencing financial hardship and undergoing several ownership changes in the late 20th century, the magazine was purchased by businessman
David G. Bradley, who refashioned it as a general editorial magazine primarily aimed at serious national readers and "
thought leaders".[10]
In 2021 and 2022, its writers won
Pulitzer Prizes for feature writing and, in 2022, it won the award for general excellence by the American Society of Magazine Editors.
In the autumn of 1857,
Moses Dresser Phillips, a publisher from
Boston, created The Atlantic Monthly. The plan for the magazine was launched at a dinner party, which was described in a letter by Phillips:
I must tell you about a little dinner-party I gave about two weeks ago. It would be proper, perhaps, to state the origin of it was a desire to confer with my literary friends on a somewhat extensive literary project, the particulars of which I shall reserve till you come. But to the Party: My invitations included only
R. W. Emerson,
H. W. Longfellow,
J. R. Lowell,
Mr. Motley (the 'Dutch Republic' man),
O. W. Holmes,
Mr. Cabot, and
Mr. Underwood, our literary man. Imagine your uncle as the head of such a table, with such guests. The above named were the only ones invited, and they were all present. We sat down at three P.M., and rose at eight. The time occupied was longer by about four hours and thirty minutes than I am in the habit of consuming in that kind of occupation, but it was the richest time intellectually by all odds that I have ever had. Leaving myself and 'literary man' out of the group, I think you will agree with me that it would be difficult to duplicate that number of such conceded scholarship in the whole country besides... Each one is known alike on both sides of the Atlantic, and is read beyond the limits of the English language.[17]
At that dinner he announced his idea for the magazine:
Mr. Cabot is much wiser than I am. Dr. Holmes can write funnier verses than I can. Mr. Motley can write history better than I. Mr. Emerson is a philosopher and I am not. Mr. Lowell knows more of the old poets than I. But none of you knows the American people as well as I do.[17]
The Atlantic's first issue was published in November 1857, and quickly gained notability as one of the finest magazines in the English-speaking world.
A leading literary magazine, The Atlantic has published many significant works and authors. It was the first to publish pieces by the abolitionists
Julia Ward Howe ("
Battle Hymn of the Republic" on February 1, 1862), and
William Parker, whose
slave narrative, "The Freedman's Story" was published in February and March 1866. It also published
Charles W. Eliot's "The New Education", a call for practical reform that led to his appointment to the presidency of
Harvard University in 1869, works by
Charles Chesnutt before he collected them in The Conjure Woman (1899), and poetry and short stories, and helped launch many national literary careers.[citation needed] In 2005, the magazine won a National Magazine Award for fiction.[21]
In addition to publishing notable fiction and poetry, The Atlantic has emerged in the 21st century as an influential platform for
longform storytelling and newsmaker interviews. Influential cover stories have included
Anne Marie Slaughter's "Why Women Still Can't Have It All" (2012) and
Ta-Nehisi Coates's "A Case for Reparations" (2014).[26] In 2015,
Jeffrey Goldberg's "Obama Doctrine" was widely discussed by American media and prompted response by many world leaders.[27]
In 2016, during the
2016 presidential campaign, the editorial board endorsed a candidate for the third time in the magazine's history, urging readers to support Democratic nominee
Hillary Clinton in a rebuke of Republican
Donald Trump's candidacy.[30]
After Trump prevailed in the November 2016 election, the magazine became a strong critic of him. In March 2019, a cover article by editor
Yoni Appelbaum called for the
impeachment of Donald Trump: "It's time for Congress to judge the president's fitness to serve."[31][32][33]
In September 2020, it published a story, citing several anonymous sources, reporting that Trump referred to dead American soldiers as "losers".[34] Trump called it a "fake story", and suggested the magazine would soon be out of business.[35][36]
In 2020, The Atlantic endorsed the Democratic presidential nominee
Joe Biden in the
2020 presidential election, and urged its readers to oppose Trump's re-election bid.[37]
In 2005, The Atlantic and the
Aspen Institute launched the
Aspen Ideas Festival, a ten-day event in and around the city of
Aspen, Colorado.[38] The annual conference features 350 presenters, 200 sessions, and 3,000 attendees. The event has been called a "political
who's who" as it often features policymakers, journalists, lobbyists, and
think tank leaders.[39]
On January 22, 2008, TheAtlantic.com dropped its
subscriber wall and allowed users to freely browse its site, including all past archives.[40] By 2011 The Atlantic's web properties included TheAtlanticWire.com, a news- and opinion-tracking site launched in 2009,[41] and TheAtlanticCities.com, a stand-alone website started in 2011 that was devoted to global cities and trends.[42] According to a Mashable profile in December 2011, "traffic to the three web properties recently surpassed 11 million uniques per month, up a staggering 2500% since The Atlantic brought down its paywall in early 2008."[43]
In 2009, it launched
The Atlantic Wire, the sister site of The Atlantic's online presence, TheAtlantic.com.[clarification needed] It initially served to the purpose of aggregating news and opinions from online, print, radio, and television outlets.[44][45][46] At its launch, it published
op-eds from across the media spectrum and summarized significant positions in each debate.[46] It later expanded to feature news and original reporting.
Regular features in the magazine included "What I Read", describing the
media diets of people from entertainment, journalism, and politics; and "Trimming the Times",[47] the feature editor's summary of the best content in The New York Times. The Atlantic Wire rebranded itself as The Wire in November 2013,[48] and was folded back into The Atlantic the following year.[49]
In August 2011, it created its video channel.[50] Initially created as an aggregator, The Atlantic's video component, Atlantic Studios, has since evolved in an in-house production studio that creates custom video series and original documentaries.[51]
CityLab
In September 2011, it launched CityLab, a separate website. Its co-founders included
Richard Florida, urban theorist and professor. The stand-alone site has been described as exploring and explaining "the most innovative ideas and pressing issues facing today's global cities and neighborhoods."[52] In 2014, it was rebranded as CityLab.com, and covers transportation, environment, equity, life, and design. Among its offerings are Navigator, "a guide to urban life"; and Solutions, which covers solutions to problems in a dozen topics.[53]
In December 2011, a new Health Channel launched on TheAtlantic.com, incorporating coverage of food, as well as topics related to the mind, body, sex, family, and public health. Its launch was overseen by Nicholas Jackson, who had previously been overseeing the Life channel and initially joined the website to cover technology.[54] TheAtlantic.com has also expanded to
visual storytelling, with the addition of the "In Focus" photo blog, curated by Alan Taylor.[55]
In 2015, TheAtlantic.com launched a dedicated Science section[56] and in January 2016 it redesigned and expanded its politics section in conjunction with the 2016 U.S. presidential race.[57]
In 2015, CityLab and
Univision launched CityLab Latino, which features original journalism in Spanish as well as translated reporting from the English language edition of CityLab.com.[58] The site has not been updated since 2018.
In early December 2019, Atlantic Media sold CityLab to
Bloomberg Media,[59][60] which promptly laid off half the staff.[61] The site was relaunched on June 18, 2020, with few major changes other than new branding and linking the site with other Bloomberg verticals and its data terminal.[62]
In September 2019, TheAtlantic.com introduced a digital subscription model, restricting unsubscribed readers' access to five free articles per month.[63][64]
In June 2020, The Atlantic released its first full-length documentary, White Noise, a film about three
alt-right activists.[65]
Praise, retractions, and controversies
In June 2006, the Chicago Tribune named The Atlantic one of the top ten English-language magazines, describing it as the "150-year-old granddaddy of periodicals" because "it keeps us smart and in the know" with cover stories on the then-forthcoming fight over Roe v. Wade. It also lauded regular features such as "Word Fugitives" and "Primary Sources" as "cultural barometers".[66]
On January 14, 2013, The Atlantic's website published "
sponsor content" promoting
David Miscavige, the leader of the
Church of Scientology. While the magazine had previously published advertising looking like articles, this was widely criticized. The page comments were moderated by the marketing team, not by editorial staff, and comments
critical of the church were being removed. Later that day, The Atlantic removed the piece from its website and issued an apology.[67][68][69]
In 2019, the magazine published an expose on the allegations against movie director
Bryan Singer that "sent Singer's career into a tailspin". It was originally contracted to Esquire magazine, but the writers moved it there due to what New York Times reporter
Ben Smith described as
Hearst magazines' "timid" nature. "There's not a lot of nuance here",
Jeffrey Goldberg said. "They
spiked a story that should have been published in the
public interest for reasons unknown."[70]
On November 1, 2020, The Atlantic retracted an article, "The Mad, Mad World of Niche Sports Among
Ivy League–Obsessed Parents", after an inquiry by The Washington Post. An 800-word editor's note said, "We cannot attest to the trustworthiness and credibility of the author, and therefore we cannot attest to the veracity of the article." The article's author, freelancer
Ruth Shalit Barrett, had left the staff of The New Republic in 1999 amid allegations of
plagiarism.[71][72] On January 7, 2022, Barrett sued the magazine for defamation. The lawsuit claimed The Atlantic misrepresented Barrett's background and destroyed her journalistic career through what it publicly said about her.[73][74]
On February 5, 2024, The Atlantic cut ties with well-known contributor
Yascha Mounk after he was accused of rape. He called the allegation "categorically untrue."[75]
Ownership and editors
By its third year, it was published by
Boston publishing house
Ticknor and Fields, which later became part of
Houghton Mifflin,[citation needed] based in the city known for literary culture. The magazine was purchased in 1908 by editor at the time,
Ellery Sedgwick, and remained in Boston.
In 1980, the magazine was acquired by
Mortimer Zuckerman, property magnate and founder of
Boston Properties, who became its chairman. On September 27, 1999, Zuckerman transferred ownership of the magazine to
David G. Bradley, owner of the
National Journal Group, which focused on
Washington, D.C. and
federal government news. Bradley had promised that the magazine would stay in Boston for the foreseeable future, as it did for the next five-and-a-half years.
In April 2005, however, the publishers announced that the editorial offices would be moved from their longtime home at 77 North Washington Street in Boston to join the company's advertising and circulation divisions in Washington, D.C.[76] Later in August, Bradley told The New York Observer that the move was not made to save money—near-term savings would be $200,000–$300,000, a relatively small amount that would be swallowed by severance-related spending—but instead would serve to create a hub in Washington, D.C., where the top minds from all of Bradley's publications could collaborate under the
Atlantic Media Company umbrella. Few of the Boston staff agreed to move, and Bradley then commenced an open search for a new editorial staff.[77]
In 2006, Bradley hired
James Bennet, the
Jerusalem bureau chief for The New York Times, as editor-in-chief. Bradley also hired Jeffrey Goldberg and
Andrew Sullivan as writers for the magazine.[78]
In 2008, Jay Lauf joined the organization as publisher and vice-president; as of 2017, he was publisher and president of Quartz.[79]
In early 2014, Bennet and Bob Cohn became co-presidents of The Atlantic, and Cohn became the publication's sole president in March 2016 when Bennet was tapped to lead The New York Times's editorial page.[80][81] Jeffrey Goldberg was named editor-in-chief in October 2016.[82]
On July 28, 2017, The Atlantic announced that billionaire investor and philanthropist
Laurene Powell Jobs (the widow of former
Apple Inc. chairman and CEO
Steve Jobs) had acquired majority ownership through her
Emerson Collective organization, with a staff member of Emerson Collective, Peter Lattman, being immediately named as vice chairman of The Atlantic. David G. Bradley and Atlantic Media retained a minority share position in this sale.[83]
In May 2019, technology journalist Adrienne LaFrance became executive editor.[84]
^"The Atlantic". The Atlantic.
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^Chevalier, Tracy (2012). "The Atlantic Monthly American magazine, 1857". Encyclopaedia of the Essay. The Atlantic Monthly was founded in Boston in 1857 by Francis Underwood (an assistant to the publisher...
^Sedgwick, Ellery (2009) [1994]. A History of the Atlantic Monthly, 1857–1909: Yankee Humanism at High Tide and Ebb (Reprint ed.). Amherst, Mass.: University of Massachusetts Press. p. 3.
ISBN9781558497931.
OCLC368048027.
^Whittier, John Greenleaf (1975). The Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier. Vol. 2. p. 318. "... owever, was the founding of the Atlantic Monthly in 1857. Initiated by Francis Underwood and with Lowell as its first editor, the magazine had been sponsored and organized by Lowell, Emerson, Holmes, and Longfellow."
^Goodman, Susan (2011). Republic of Words: The Atlantic Monthly and Its Writers. p. 90.
^Appelbaum, Yoni (January 17, 2019).
"Impeach Donald Trump". The Atlantic.
Archived from the original on February 27, 2021. Retrieved January 17, 2019.
^Kaufman, Rachel (January 19, 2011).
"Alan Taylor Jumps to The Atlantic". Media Bistro's Media Jobs Daily.
Archived from the original on March 3, 2014. Retrieved March 27, 2012.