Alan Brinkley

The bedrock American image of the stable society with universal values was fabricated by one of the most powerful publishing titans of this century, argued Alan Brinkley, the Allan Nevins Professor of History, at the semester's first GSAS Dean's Distinguished Lecture, hosted by Eduardo R. Macagno at the University Club in midtown.

In his lecture, "Henry Luce, Time Magazine, and the Shaping of Modern Journalism," Brinkley described how Luce's "arrogant, dogmatic, and famously opinionated" character propelled him to conquer the publishing world for more than half a century, inventing both Time and Life magazines, and in the process, re-shaping American journalism, standard and culture.

The cultural norm created by Luce in many ways reflected Luce's own vision, Brinkley said.

"There's the assumption that there was once a time when America was stable, homogenous, and it's citizens were grounded in shared common values." This, Brinkley argued, was a fabrication Luce conjured to reflect the values he so strongly championed and the society he believed possible.

The vehicle that allowed Luce his success, Brinkley explained, was the creation of a new economic middle class which emerged in great numbers during the boom years after World War I. Luce believed this group to be more sophisticated and culturally aware, but still envisioned Time as a publication that would "interpret the news for those who could not do so on their own."

"Luce constructed a national culture to serve the rapidly expanding middle class," Brinkley said. "He used Time as a cultural vehicle that created the lie of a united America." Still there was a sincerity behind Luce's motivation as he desperately longed to reach out to the American heartland. In this effort, Luce even moved Time's headquarters briefly to Cleveland, until his partner at the time convinced him to return to New York.

Born and raised in China in an American and English Christian mission surrounded by high walls, Luce never quite experienced the middle class values he spent his life trying to sustain. He came to America as a teenager and entered an elite boarding school before going to Yale and serving as managing editor of it's daily paper.

"For Luce," Brinkley said, "America began as an abstraction." He believed that America was to become the inheritor of western civilization and hoped to enlighten the general public as well as entertain them. The purpose of Life magazine, as stated by Luce, was "To see life, to see the world, to eyewitness great events."

Brinkley added that in contrast to newspapers, which Luce considered dull and arduous to read, he wanted Time readable from cover to cover within one hour. Critics said that in doing this, Time writers invented a new, livelier journalistic language some mockingly called "Timese." However, as Brinkley noted, "Many of the reasons why critics disliked Time have become journalistic norms today."

Luce's mission was successful for the better part of the 20th century, though today's media paints a more realistic picture; often a more disturbing one than the united harmony of Time in the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s. As Brinkley concluded, "I'm sure today's Time magazine would be as unrecognizable to Luce as the world it attempts to portray."

Alan Brinkley is the Allan Nevins Professor of History and was inducted this fall into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Other speakers scheduled for this years GSAS Dean's Distinguished Lecture include Professor Eric Kandel, University Professor of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics, Psychiatry, Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics on Feb. 8 and Dean Lisa Anderson of the School of International and Public affairs on April 13.