Street & Smith Goes to War: Patriotic Pulps of July 1942

During July 1942, seven months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Magazine Publisher’s Association proposed as a sign of solidarity that all U.S. magazine covers should feature an American flag. Over 500 magazines participated, including Time, National Geographic, and American Hairdresser. Sunset’s flag flew over a green river valley. Vogue’s cover girl wore a gown billowing like the flags around her. A color guard of chicken eggs marched across the Poultry Tribune. And the entire lineup of magazines published by Street & Smith–including Astounding SF, Detective Story, Doc Savage, Love Story, The Shadow, Sport Story, Western Story, and Wild West Weekly–ran the same cover (featured below), showing the flag waving against a background of the sun rising over a church steeple in an idyllic American small town.

For more information on this event, see the Smithsonian museum’s online U.S. history exhibit, July 1942: United We Stand; you can also search (by title or keyword) a cover gallery of nearly 300 magazines that participated at Search the Covers.

Single Post Navigation

← Older Entry

Newer Entry →