Printed Page 111

Minority-targeted magazines, like newspapers, have existed since before the Civil War. One of the most influential early African American magazines, the Crisis, was founded by W. E. B. Du Bois in 1910 and is the official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Since then, the major magazine publisher for African Americans has been John H. Johnson, a former Chicago insurance salesman. Johnson started Negro Digest in 1942, Ebony in 1945 (a picture text magazine modeled on Life but serving black readers), and Jet in 1951 (a pocket-size supermarket magazine). Essence, the first major magazine geared toward African American women, debuted in 1969, and by 2010 had a circulation of more than 1 million.

Other magazines have served additional minority groups. For example, the Advocate, founded in 1967 as a twelve-page newsletter, was the first major magazine to address issues of interest to gay men and lesbians. Since its founding, it has published some of the best journalism on topics not covered by the mainstream press.

Magazines appealing to Spanish-speaking readers have also proliferated since the 1980s, reflecting the growth of Hispanic populations in the United States. Today, People en Español, Latina, and Glamour en Español rank as the top three Hispanic magazines by ad revenue. Although national magazines aimed at other minority groups were slow to arrive, there are now magazines targeting virtually every race, culture, and ethnicity, including Asian Week, Native Peoples, Tikkun (published for Jewish readers), and many more.