Liberty Magazine

I came across a group of magazines from the 1930s that were new to me.  Liberty Magazine.  The covers are beautiful Rockwell-like illustrations.  Inside, the magazine says it is "For Liberals with Common Sense."  They also advertised with the phrase, "A Weekly for Everybody!"  Liberty's main competitors were the Saturday Evening Post and Collier's.   Liberty included the Blue Eagle of the National Recovery Administration on its cover.  The NRA was intended to assist the recovery of industry and agriculture during the Great Depression by bringing them together with government to create codes of "fair practices."  The NRA was deemed unconstitutional in 1935 by the U.S. Supreme Court, but was replaced in many ways by the National Labor Relations Act.  Both guaranteed some form of rights to labor organization and negotiation.

The magazine covered a lot of ground, heavy on politics and national affairs.  It also offered short stories, essays and serialized novels, as well as plenty of Hollywood gossip and features.

The cover illustrations really caught my eye, too.  One of the main illustrators for Liberty was Leslie Thrasher.  He also did twenty-three covers for the Saturday Evening Post where his counterpart Norman Rockwell also worked.  Here are the ones that came bundled with a bunch of other 1930s periodicals.

By Leslie Thrasher, Issue of October 28, 1933

By Irene Zimerman, Issue of August 25, 1934

By Grotz Studio, Issue of September 21, 1935

By Hubbell Reed, Issue of October 24, 1936

By R.C. Kauffman, Issue of January 30, 1937

By Tom Hall, Issue of February 20, 1937

By Ellen Senger, Issue of June 5, 1937

By Ben Soloway, Issue of December 11, 1937

By Robert G. Harris, Issue of December 18, 1937

By Charles H. Towne, Issue of February 5, 1938

Issue of July 2, 1938

By Percy Lee, Issue of July 23, 1938

 And last but not least, a cigarette ad from the December 11, 1937 issue.  Can you imagine receiving a carton of Lucky Strikes from Joan Crawford for Christmas?