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Facts & Figures
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The Masses was founded in 1911 by Piet Vlag. Although the magazine was considered rather commonplace at the time, Vlag announced that his magazine, intended to campaign for the rights of the working man. The editorial and financial structure of The Masses was meant to reflect the ideals of cooperation and Vlag was able to assemble a staff of socially minded professional artists and journalists who worked for him without pay.
It was not until September 1911, when The Masses found itself in financial difficulty that the magazine began to show its literary potential. The artist, Art Young, along with a small group of Greenwich Village bohemians, elected Max Eastman 1912 as editor to The Masses. The new Masses offered humor and wit, as well as sharp social criticism, with a certain vibrancy and sparkle.
In 1913, The Masses had the first of its many encounters with the U.S. government and media. The editors accused the Associated Press of suppressing, after that the magazine was faced with a libel suit.
The magazine began to shift focus in 1915 and 1916, becoming much more of a literary voice, rather than focusing on political issues. Included in most of the issues were works by such authors as Sherwood Anderson, Amy Lowell, and Carl Sandburg. Despite this focus on the literary, after January of 1916 The Masses was no longer allowed to be sold on New York’s newsstands; U.S. involvement in the war had elevated, and The Masses' socialist-pacifist point of view threatened the U.S. stance. In 1917, the Post Office Department succeeded in barring the periodical from the mail. That same year, the Department of Justice brought charges against Eastman, Dell, Young, and others for. In March 1917 The Masses turned into The Liberator. With Eastman and Art Young acting as editors, the magazine was similar to The Masses, although it lacked much of its formers panache. In 1924 The Liberator was given over to the Communists.
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