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nostalgia
August 17, 2014

Revisit the Golden Era of Look Magazine

By Erica Schwiegershausen

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Photo: Douglas Jones

From its founding in 1937 until the early ’70s, Life Magazine — the first American weekly picture magazine — was the most popular rag in the country. But it was not without its competitors: 1937 also marked the founding of Look Magazine, run by Des Moines Tribune editors and brothers Gardner and John Cowles.

Derided as “barber shop reading” in the ’40s, Look — known for its large-scale photographs and very short articles — lacked the high aspirations and self-seriousness of Life. At the time of its launch, Time described the magazine as having “reader interest for yourself, for your private secretary, for your office boy — a magazine mostly for the middle class and for ordinary lives.”

Look had sold 3.7 million issues by the mid 1950s, but the biweekly went out of print in 1971 (a year before Life) and largely faded from historical consciousness. This month, a new book, The Forgotten Fifties, celebrates the magazine’s heyday. Mining the publication’s archives from the Library of Congress, James Conaway compiled photographic highlights that include rare shots of Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, and Jackie Kennedy, as well as photographs by a young Stanley Kubrick — who began his career as a staff photographer at the magazine in the late ’40s.

Click through the slideshow for a sentimental journey back through the ’50s, including beauty pageants, lingerie models, and inflatable swimming pools.

Related

Take a Trip to Cuba With These Glamorous Vintage Photos
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1 / 13 Photos
Marilyn Monroe, 1952 
Audrey Hepburn, 1952 
Jackie Kennedy, 1959 
The dancer Mitzi Gaynor, 1951 
Lucille Ballathome with her daughter, Lucie Desiree, 1952 
A lingerie saleswoman photographed for the March 1950 issue of Look by Stanley Kubrick, who was 21 at the time. 
Marilyn Monroe, 1955 
Park Forest, Illinois, 1954 
Natalie Wood, 1957 
A two-tiered beauty pagaent in Park Forest, Illinois, 1954 120
Montgomery Clift, photographed by Stanley Kubrick in 1949 for an article titled "Glamor Boy in Baggy Pants." 
Miami's Orange Bowl game, 1951 
Eisenhower campaigners, 1956 
1 / 13

Tags:

  • nostalgia
  • it's vintage
  • the forgotten fifties
  • look magazine
  • life magazine
  • stanley kubrick
  • marilyn monroe
  • jackie kennedy
  • audrey hepburn
  • the '50s
  • slideshow
  • More

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