New Masses #1
New Masses Vol. 7 No. 1 (June 1931) represents the American cultural left's most prominent illustrated political periodical at the height of the Great Depression — a moment when the magazine's satirical cartoons targeting sitting heads of state and rising fascist figures carried real urgency. Appearing in print during the same year Hitler was consolidating power in Germany, Mussolini was firmly entrenched as Italy's dictator, and Herbert Hoover was presiding over a collapsing U.S. economy, the issue placed all three on the page in a context of radical working-class critique. The magazine has been called 'the principal organ of the American cultural left from 1926 onwards,' and its early 1930s issues — mixing proletarian fiction, poetry, and biting graphic satire — represent a high-water mark of American radical visual culture that permanently influenced the aesthetics of political cartooning.
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New Masses was launched in New York City in May 1926 under the Workers (Communist) Party of America's publishing umbrella, as a successor to The Masses (1911–1917) and The Liberator (1918–1924). The masthead for June 1931 (Vol. 7, No. 1) listed Michael Gold as editor, Walt Carmon as managing editor, and an executive board of Hugo Gellert, William Gropper, Horace Gregory, I. Klein, and Louis Lozowick — a roster of some of the era's most accomplished radical graphic artists and writers. The magazine was produced by New Masses, Inc., headquartered at 112 East 19th Street, New York City, and distributed as a stapled monthly measuring approximately 11.5 × 8.75 inches. Many contributors to this period were not formal Party members; Joseph Freeman recalled that among the fifty-six writers and artists associated with the early New Masses, only two were Communist Party members and fewer than a dozen were fellow travelers.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published as Volume 7, Number 1 (June 1931) by New Masses, Inc., New York — the first issue of the seventh volume of the ongoing series catalogued under the Workers (Communist) Party of America.
- Editor-in-chief: Michael Gold; Managing Editor: Walt Carmon; Executive Board included graphic artists Hugo Gellert, William Gropper, and Louis Lozowick.
- The magazine was the principal illustrated forum for American radical political cartooning of the 1930s; its visual artists regularly caricatured international political figures including heads of state.
- Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and President Herbert Hoover appear in this issue as subjects of political commentary and/or satirical illustration, consistent with the magazine's editorial focus on anti-fascism and anti-capitalism.
- New Masses was a direct successor to The Masses (suppressed by the U.S. government in 1917) and The Liberator (1918–1924), carrying forward a lineage of radical illustrated American political journalism.
- The magazine was still in its monthly format in June 1931; it would not become a weekly publication until January 2, 1934.
- Contributing artists whose work appeared across this era of New Masses included William Gropper, Hugo Gellert, Reginald Marsh, Jacob Burck, and Louis Lozowick — figures central to the American Social Realist tradition.
- The full run of New Masses (1926–1948) has been digitized and made publicly available via the Marxists Internet Archive / Riazanov Library digital archive project.