PM (newspaper)
PM was a liberal-leaning daily newspaper published in New York City by Ralph Ingersoll from June 1940 to June 1948 and financed by Chicago millionaire Marshall Field III.
Type
The paper borrowed many elements from weekly news magazines, such as many large photos and at first was bound with staples. In an attempt to be free of pressure from business interests, it did not accept advertising. These departures from the norms of newspaper publishing created excitement in the industry. Some 11,000 people applied for the 150 jobs available when the publication first hired staff.
Staff[edit]
Editors[edit]
Leo Huberman was labor editor.
Writers[edit]
I. F. Stone was the paper's Washington correspondent. He published an award-winning series on European Jewish refugees attempting to run the British blockade to reach Palestine (later collected and published as Underground to Palestine). Staffers included theater critic Louis Kronenberger and film critic Cecelia Ager. Kenneth G. Crawford wrote for PM from 1939 to 1942.
The sports writers were Tom Meany, Tom O’Reilly and George F. T. Ryall, who covered horse racing. Sophie Smoliar was the New York City reporter working frequently with photographer Arthur Felig ("Weegee") (submitted by her son and a collection of her original articles). Elizabeth Hawes wrote about fashion, and her sister Charlotte Adams covered food.[4][8]
Contributors[edit]
Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, published more than 400 cartoons on PM's editorial page.[8][9] Crockett Johnson's comic strip Barnaby debuted in the paper in 1942. Other artists who worked at PM included Ad Reinhardt, one of the founders of Abstract Expressionism, and Joseph Leboit; both contributed margin cartoons and drawings. Noted artist Jack Coggins contributed wartime artwork for at least nine issues between 1940 and 1942.[10]
Coulton Waugh created his short-lived strip, Hank, which began April 30, 1945, in PM. The story of a disabled G.I. returning to civilian life, Hank had a unique look due to Waugh's decorative art style, combined with dialogue lettered in upper and lower case rather than the accepted convention of all uppercase lettering in balloons and captions. Some dialogue was displayed with white lettering reversed into black balloons. Hank sought to raise questions about the reasons for war, and how it might be prevented by the next generation. Waugh discontinued it at the very end of 1945 because of eyestrain.[1] Cartoonist Jack Sparling created the short-lived comic strip Claire Voyant, which ran from 1943 to 1948 in PM, and which was subsequently syndicated by the Chicago Sun-Times. Cartoonist Howard Sparber (né Howard Paul Sparber; 1921–2018) contributed after World War II.
The Argentine Cartoonist Dante Quinterno publishes: Patoruzú his successful strip in South America.
Other writers who contributed articles included Erskine Caldwell, Myril Axlerod, McGeorge Bundy, Saul K. Padover, James Wechsler, eventually the paper's editorial writer, Penn Kimball, later a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Myril Axelrod Bennett, Heywood Hale Broun, James Thurber, Dorothy Parker, Ernest Hemingway, Eugene Lyons, Earl Conrad, Benjamin Stolberg, Louis Adamic, Malcolm Cowley,[4] Tip O'Neill (later Speaker of the House;[8] and Ben Hecht.[4]
Photographers[edit]
Weegee, Margaret Bourke-White, Ray Platnick and Arthur Leipzig were the primary photographers.