In summer 1942, an extraordinary phenomenon played out on newsstands and in mailboxes across the United States. From June through August that year, the nation's magazines—from Infantry Journal and American Legion to The New Yorker and Glamour—draped their covers in the American flag. And according to Nina Link, president and chief executive officer of the Magazine Publishers of America (MPA), what was then called "a patriotic conspiracy" could happen again in 2002. In a recent interview with Naval History, she said, "We don't yet know, but notice of a special public service campaign has been sent to all of our members—about 240, which represent about 1,400 magazines. Our board, which is made up of 38 members who represent a few hundred magazines, have all indicated they will participate."
The original campaign, which was the brainchild of Paul MacNamara, Hearst Corporation publicist, editor of Cosmopolitan, and later a publicist in Hollywood, mushroomed in 1942 into a rarely seen show of patriotism nationwide. "I don't know that anything like it had ever been done before," said Link. "And I imagine the newsstands were quite spectacular."
In an effort to boost sales of war bonds only months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, nearly 500 publications seized the opportunity to adorn their covers with the flag. Teamed with the U.S. Flag Association, the National Publishers Association (now the MPA) sponsored the campaign and titled it "United We Stand."
The U.S. Flag Association went a step further and launched a contest judged by some of the nation's leading artists and photographers, including Vaughn Flannery, Norman Rockwell, Edward Steichen, and Margaret Bourke-White, who awarded Patriotic Service Crosses to eight publications. They also presented a Grand Prize Cross of Honor to House & Garden magazine, which depicted the flag flying in the foreground of a rendering of George Washington's home at Mount Vernon. In addition, the U.S. Treasury Department organized special displays for the magazines at more than 1,200 retail outlets across the nation.
Now, nearly 100 of the original covers from 60 years ago are on display until 27 October at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. Most came from California environmentalist and Episcopal minister Peter Kreitler, who acquired the collection of the late Marguerite Storm—a woman who had gathered many of the "flag magazines" from friends across the country that summer of '42.
Since its opening in March, the exhibit has surpassed all expectations of the museum staff. In fact, Curator Marilyn Zoidis told Naval History she is almost out of bookmarks. "We are giving out bookmarks to the public," she said, "as a way to tell a little bit about the exhibit, suggest further reading, and publicize the companion Web site. So far we have distributed about 14,000 bookmarks, and we're down to our final stack. We had thought they would last through the exhibition period, but we're only two months into it, and we're putting in an order for more."
This renewed interest in the flag seems to be a barometer of the current climate among the populace, but among the museum staff it is purely coincidental, said Zoidis. "We were well into this project before the September 11th terrorist attacks. The American flag is something we study here at the museum all the time. I think since then there has been an increased awareness of what an important symbol the flag is for Americans."
When plans for the exhibit began to take shape, the Smithsonian curators were faced with a bit of a dilemma; they had many of the magazines in hand, but the story behind them was sketchy at best. Said Zoidis: "The research we did for this was challenging, because this was one of those episodes of World War II homefront history that really had been lost over time. There was not a lot of newspaper coverage."
To fill the gaps, Smithsonian researchers went to one of the sources of the original flag cover campaign, the MPA. Said MPA president and CEO Link, "I like to say it kind of fell in our laps. As we got involved from the research side, we realized that this exhibit was such a wonderful celebration of the power of magazines that we wanted to celebrate the exhibit. It's one of those wonderful examples of something that comes in over the transom, and we say, 'Wow, this is an enormous opportunity for the industry!'"
That opportunity lay in the MPA's own archives. According to Zoidis, when researchers learned the National Publishers Association had sponsored the original "United We Stand" campaign, "the MPA gave us permission to go through its archives. Helena Wright, who handled that end of the research, came across the minutes to the meeting in which the idea was presented. It was an extraordinary find."
All this has evolved into an exhibit remarkable not only in its visual effect but also as an illustration of how concerted the effort really was. Would something so overwhelming ever happen again? Probably not. "First of all, there were far fewer magazines, by many times," said the MPA's Link. "So there were fewer people to organize. That's the most significant difference between then and now."
For more information on the Smithsonian exhibit, visit its Web site at www.americanhistory.si.edu. For the full effect of the colorful covers, visit the National Museum of American History at 14th Street and Constitution Avenue, N.W., in Washington, D.C. Hours are from 1000 to 1730. "When you see 100 magazine covers all flying the American flag," said Curator Zoidis, "it is a compelling sight, and it draws you in to look more closely."