Picture Post Magazine and its left wing agenda

[editor]

After spotting this old sign in Stockwell Road, I did a bit of research into the now defunct Picture Post magazine and was surprised how political it was.

First published in 1938, the magazine was an immediate smash with the public, shifting 1,350,000 copies a week and featuring the work of a talented team of writers and photographers, including the famous

Bert Hardy.

Not afraid to confront political and social issues, the magazine ran a campaign against the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany before the war.

In January 1941, they published their 'Plan for Britain,' which was a radical document demanding minimum wages throughout industry, full employment, child allowances, a national health service, the planned use of land and education reform.

Despite the war, the Picture Post was selling 950,000 copies a week in December 1943, reaching a circulation of 1,422,000 by 1949 and raking in healthy profits in excess of £2,500 a week.

The left wing editor, Tom Hopkinson, was often in conflict with the Tory owner, Edward G. Hulton, who complained in 1945 that, "I cannot permit editors of my newspapers to become organs of Communist propaganda. Still less to make the great newspaper which I built up a laughing-stock."

In 1950, the editor sent James Cameron and Bert Hardy to cover the Korean War, and one of the pieces they sent back was about how South Koreans were treating their political prisoners.

The boss considered their report to be "communist propaganda" and forced Hopkinson to resign.

Several journalists promptly refused to continue working for the magazine and left, and by June 1952 the circulation had plummetted to 935,000.

Sales continued to decline, and after crashing to 600,000 copies a week, the magazine closed for good in May 1957.

Picture Post history

More pics: http://www.urban75.org/brixton/features/stockwell-brixton-adverts.html


(apols for the rubbish thread title!)

 

[treelover]

In 1950, the editor sent James Cameron and Bert Hardy to cover the Korean War, and one of the pieces they sent back was about how South Koreans were treating their political prisoners.

Surprised you hadn't heard about it, (PP) the above caused massive contreversy when it was published and yes, P/P popularised a lot of progressive moral and left wing issues and concerns, they would certainly be doing something about the fuel price increases which probably meant a number of pensioners died last night, and whcih the left has done little.

 

[treelover]

Sales continued to decline, and after crashing to 600,000 copies a week, the magazine closed for good in May 1957.

Some publications would kill for those circulation figures today.

 

[tarannau]

Yep. It's a great history and a wonderful collection. I really enjoyed spending time rummaging through the Hulton Getty and Picture Post archives - more amazing photos in there than they'll ever catalogue and find.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

I've got bound copies from the first issues that belonged to my Gran up to the late 1940s. The adverts alone are fascinating.

 

[belboid]

it was a superb mag (from the copies I've seen in places like the Marx Memorial library), Bert Hardy's pics were amazing, even now but especially for the time.

quite a few of the pics are still available online - http://www.gettyimages.com/creative/frontdoor/hultonarchive?country=usa

 

[editor]

Imagine what the Picture Post editor would think now if he saw the rows and rows of stupid, vacuous, pointless schleb magazines now filling newsagent shelves.

 

[ClassWar]

I've got bound copies from the first issues that belonged to my Gran up to the late 1940s. The adverts alone are fascinating.

isn't there a book of photos from them too?

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Yup. I haven't seen this though.
www.amazon.co.uk/Picture-Post-Britain/dp/185585077X

 

[William of Walworth]

We have a near-complete run of PP where I work**

**Just about, still, for now ...

I catalogued Picture Post a few years ago ... that particular job took some time

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Which ones are you missing William? You never know. My granny would be thrilled if some of her old copies ended up completing the collection in such a world-renowned institution.....

 

[quimcunx]

Imagine what the Picture Post editor would think now if he saw the rows and rows of stupid, vacuous, pointless schleb magazines now filling newsagent shelves.

Much the same sense of doom and despair that many of us feel, I expect. Though perhaps more so, with being confronted with it suddenly rather being insidiously infected with them.

I'm assuming he's been dead a while.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

11 years, but Picture Post died long before he did....


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Lorant

 

[quimcunx]

Ah well. He will have seen the lay of the land.

lie of the land? whichever.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

I have a small collection of Picture Post magazines. I would dearly love to get my hands on a copy of the edition where Bert Hardy photographed firefighters in the London Blitz. The editor was so impressed with these that he gave Bert Hardy a picture credit next to the pictures. This was the first time this was done in a photographic magazine and is now the custom. Previously the photographer was anonymous.

One of the aspects of Picture Post was that they would send out a team comprising a photographer and a journalist who would write up the story. They published a series of pictures with captions and with them was also the written article.

The idea of pictorial magazines of current news originated in Germany from where Stefan Lorant came. The most famous of these magazines internationally was Life Magazine which was the vehicle used by Robert Capa for his political photography in Europe in the 30s and later in the second World War.

Some of the Picture Post magazines during the Second World War contained articles by influential thinkers who were putting forward ideas for how Britain would be changed after the war. Much of it was ideological, but there was an appetite for it during the conflict and some of the ideas came to fruition courtesy of the incoming Labour government. i have a copy which has a story about British trawlermen catching fish during the war. It can be directly compared with the recent television series of documentaries about the North American trawlers doing the crab catching in horrible conditions,

The demise of Picture Post was brought forward by the resignation of Tom Hopkinson in his support of Bert Hardy who had take pictures of American prisoners of war in Korea who were shackled and crouching down with their heads down in a very humiliating position in contravention of the rules of war. It was the connection between the owner of the magazine and government ministers that led to the story originally being withdrawn and then re-issued by Lorant

After Hopkinson left, the magazine lost its impact and became more cautious. To be fair the arrival of television as a visual news medium was probably just as important in killing it off. Weekly news magazines with photographs were replaced by daily television news.

I have written this from memory so there may be errors particularly of spelling of names etc.

 

[ClassWar]

Yup. I haven't seen this though.
www.amazon.co.uk/Picture-Post-Britain/dp/185585077X

this is the one i mean: http://www.capricornbooks.ca/si/13441.html