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68-448: Spivak entered publishing in 1933 as the business manager of The American Mercury , and two years later, he became the magazine's publisher, expanding his operations in the late 1930s with additional titles. His subsidiary companies included Mystery House and Fantasy House . Two Mercury series were Mercury Library and Mercury Books. Other Mercury imprints and titles included: Spivak launched his Bestseller Library series in 1938, with

136-434: A conservative magazine. William F. Buckley Jr. , whose God and Man at Yale was a best seller, worked for Huie's Mercury , as a young staffer. In 1955, Buckley founded the longer-living conservative National Review . Buckley would succeed at what Huie was unable to realize: a periodical that brought together the nascent but differing strands of this new conservative movement. Huie faced financial difficulties sustaining

204-506: A daily rate of 133 in 1931). The 1929 crash brought the Roaring Twenties to a halt. As tentatively expressed by economic historian Charles P. Kindleberger , in 1929, there was no lender of last resort effectively present, which, if it had existed and been properly exercised, would have been key in shortening the business slowdown that normally follows financial crises. The crash instigated widespread and long-lasting consequences for

272-620: A mass of 250 million bushels of wheat to be "carried over" when 1929 opened. By May there was also a winter wheat crop of 560 million bushels ready for harvest in the Mississippi Valley. The oversupply caused such a drop in wheat prices that the net incomes of farmers from wheat were threatened with extinction. Stock markets are always sensitive to the future state of commodity markets, and the slump in Wall Street that had been predicted for May by Sir George Paish arrived on time. In June 1929,

340-502: A much-imitated feature. Mencken spiced the package with aphorisms printed in the magazine's margins whenever space allowed. Mencken retired as editor of the magazine at the end of 1933. His chosen successor was economist and literary critic Henry Hazlitt . Differences with the publisher, Alfred A. Knopf Sr. , however, led Hazlitt to resign after four months. The American Mercury was next edited by Mencken's former assistant Charles Angoff . In January 1935, The American Mercury

408-763: A new title each month. In 1940, he split the Bestseller Library into Mercury Mysteries and Bestseller Mysteries . Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine began in 1941, followed by the Jonathan Press Mysteries imprint in 1942. Mercury Mystery Book Magazine continued the long-run series of full-length and condensed mystery novels published in a digest-sized format, beginning with the title of Mercury Mystery in March 1940. Starting with #210, it ran for 23 issues before merging with Bestseller Mystery Magazine . The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction began in 1949 under

476-482: A practice of suspending trading when prices fell rapidly to limit panic selling . Scholars differ over crash's effect on the Great Depression, with some claiming that the price fluctuations were insufficient on their own to trigger a major collapse of the financial system, with others arguing that the crash, combined with the other economic problems in the U.S. at the end of the 1920s, should be jointly interpreted as

544-508: A serious setback to industry when industrial production is for the most part in a healthy and balanced condition?" They argued that there must be some setback, but there was not yet sufficient evidence to prove that it would be long or would necessarily produce a general industrial depression. However, The Economist also cautioned that some bank failures were also to be expected and some banks may not have had any reserves left for financing commercial and industrial enterprises. It concluded that

612-445: A stage in the business cycles which affect all capitalist economies. The " Roaring Twenties ", the decade following World War I that led to the crash, was a time of wealth and excess. Building on post-war optimism, rural Americans migrated to the cities in vast numbers throughout the decade with hopes of finding a more prosperous life in the ever-growing expansion of America's industrial sector. Scholars believe that declines in

680-536: A strategy used during the Panic of 1907 . This encouraged a brief recovery before Black Tuesday. Further action failed to halt the fall, which continued until July 8, 1932; by then, the stock market had lost some 90% of its pre-crash value. The United States Congress responded to the events by passing the Banking Act of 1933 (Glass–Steagall Act), which separated commercial and investment banking . Stock exchanges introduced

748-471: A year after the magazine started.) Simeon Strunsky in The New York Times observed that, "The dead hand of the yokelry on the instinct for beauty cannot be so heavy if the handsome green and black cover of The American Mercury exists." The quote was used on the subscription form for the magazine during its heyday. The January 1924 issue sold more than 15,000 copies, and by the end of the first year

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816-461: The Hearst Corporation . The sale to Maguire spelled the end of The American Mercury as a mainstream magazine. It survived, steadily declining, for nearly 30 more years. Maguire's anti-semitism led to controversy and the resignation of the magazine's top editors after he took control of the editorial process in 1955. In 1956, George Lincoln Rockwell was hired as a writer, and later became

884-743: The Mercury in this new direction. In August 1952, he sold it to an occasional financial contributor, Russell Maguire, owner of the Auto-Ordnance Corporation (original producers of the Thompson submachine gun ). Rather than turn over editorial control to Maguire, Huie stepped down as editor after the January 1953 issue. He was replaced by John A. Clements, a former reporter for the New York Journal and Daily Mirror , then director of public relations for

952-544: The National City Bank , would provide $ 25 million in credit to stop the market's slide. Mitchell's move brought a temporary halt to the financial crisis, and call money declined from 20 to 8 percent. However, the American economy showed ominous signs of trouble. Steel production declined, construction was sluggish, automobile sales went down, and consumers were building up large debts because of easy credit. Despite all

1020-479: The National City Bank of New York . They chose Richard Whitney , vice president of the Exchange, to act on their behalf. With the bankers' financial resources behind him, Whitney placed a bid to purchase 25,000 shares of U.S. Steel at $ 205 per share, a price well above the current market. As traders watched, Whitney then placed similar bids on other " blue chip " stocks. The tactic was similar to one that had ended

1088-502: The Panic of 1907 and succeeded in halting the slide. The Dow Jones Industrial Average recovered, closing down only 6.38 points (2.09%) for the day. On October 28, " Black Monday ", more investors facing margin calls decided to get out of the market, and the slide continued with a record loss in the Dow for the day of 38.33 points, or 12.82%. On October 29, 1929, " Black Tuesday " hit Wall Street as investors traded some 16 million shares on

1156-520: The Pecora Commission was established by the U.S. Senate to study the causes of the crash. The following year, the U.S. Congress passed the Glass–Steagall Act mandating a separation between commercial banks , which take deposits and extend loans , and investment banks , which underwrite , issue, and distribute stocks , bonds , and other securities . Afterwards, stock markets around

1224-505: The Pioneer Fund . A 1978 article praised Adolf Hitler as the "greatest Spenglerian " and lamented his death. Another new ownership for the troubled magazine was announced in the autumn of 1979, and the spring 1980 issue celebrated Mencken's centennial, and lamented the passage of his era, "before the virus of social, racial, and sexual equality" grew in "fertile soil in the minds of most Americans". A website called The American Mercury

1292-468: The ticker tape in brokerage offices around the nation was hours late, and so investors had no idea what most stocks were trading for. Several leading Wall Street bankers met to find a solution to the panic and chaos on the trading floor. The meeting included Thomas W. Lamont , acting head of Morgan Bank ; Albert Wiggin , head of the Chase National Bank ; and Charles E. Mitchell, president of

1360-551: The uptick rule , which allowed short selling only when the last tick in a stock's price was positive, was implemented after the 1929 market crash to prevent short sellers from driving the price of a stock down in a bear raid . The stock market crash of October 1929 led directly to the Great Depression in Europe. When stocks plummeted on the New York Stock Exchange , the world noticed immediately. Although financial leaders in

1428-408: The "Editorial Notes" and "The Library", the last being book reviews and social critique, placed at the back of each volume. The magazine published other writers, from newspapermen and academics to convicts and taxi drivers, but its primary emphasis soon became non-fiction and usually satirical essays . Its "Americana" section—containing items clipped from newspapers and other magazines nationwide—became

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1496-481: The (original) Washington Observer , finally merging with Western Destiny , a Liberty Lobby publication owned by Willis Carto and Roger Pearson , a major recipient of Pioneer Fund grants in history. Pearson was a well-known neo-Nazi and pro-Fascist who headed the World Anti-Communist League during its most blatantly pro-Fascist periods. He was a close associate of Wickliffe Draper , founder of

1564-674: The Christian Faith , Inc. (DCF), owned by Reverend Gerald Burton Winrod and located in Wichita, Kansas , in 1961. Reverend Winrod had been charged for violations of the Sedition Act of 1918 ; the charges were later dropped. He had been known as "The Jayhawk Nazi" during World War II. The DCF sold it in 1963 to the "Legion for the Survival of Freedom" of Jason Matthews. The LSF cut a deal in June 1966 with

1632-427: The Dow closing at 198.60. The market then recovered for several months, starting on November 14, with the Dow gaining 18.59 points to close at 217.28, and reaching a secondary closing peak ( bear market rally ) of 294.07 on April 17, 1930. The Dow then embarked on another, much longer, steady slide from April 1930 to July 8, 1932, when it closed at 41.22, its lowest level of the 20th century, concluding an 89.2% loss for

1700-509: The Great Depression. True or not, the consequences were dire for almost everybody. Most academic experts agree on one aspect of the crash: It wiped out billions of dollars of wealth in one day, and this immediately depressed consumer buying. The failure set off a worldwide run on US gold deposits (i.e., the dollar) and forced the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates into the slump. Some 4,000 banks and other lenders ultimately failed. Also,

1768-593: The Leo Frank trial. Stock market crash of 1929 The Wall Street crash of 1929 , also known as the Great Crash or Crash of '29 , was a major stock market crash in the United States in late 1929, beginning in late October with a sharp decline in prices on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and ending in mid-November. The crash, which began a rapid erosion of confidence in the U.S. banking system and marked

1836-467: The London Stock Exchange. In the days leading up to the crash, the market was severely unstable. Periods of selling and high volumes were interspersed with brief periods of rising prices and recovery. Selling intensified in mid-October. On October 24, " Black Thursday ", the market lost 11% of its value at the opening bell on very heavy trading. The huge volume meant that the report of prices on

1904-603: The New York Stock Exchange in a single day. Around $ 14 billion of stock value was lost, wiping out thousands of investors. The panic selling reached its peak with some stocks having no buyers at any price. The Dow lost an additional 30.57 points, or 11.73%, for a total drop of 68.90 points, or 23.05% in two days. On October 29, William C. Durant joined with members of the Rockefeller family and other financial giants to buy large quantities of stocks to demonstrate to

1972-528: The Press . In 1946, the Mercury merged with the democratic-socialist magazine Common Sense . By 1950, the Mercury was owned by Clendenin J. Ryan . He changed the magazine's name to The New American Mercury . Ryan was the financial angel for Ulius Amoss , a former Office of Strategic Services agent who specialized in operating spy networks behind the Iron Curtain to destabilize Communist governments and

2040-520: The UK, protests often focused on the so-called means test , which the government had instituted in 1931 to limit the amount of unemployment payments made to individuals and families. For working people, the means test seemed an intrusive and insensitive way to deal with the chronic and relentless deprivation caused by the economic crisis. The strikes were met forcefully, with police breaking up protests, arresting demonstrators, and charging them with crimes related to

2108-703: The United Kingdom, as in the United States, vastly underestimated the extent of the crisis that ensued, it soon became clear that the world's economies were more interconnected than ever. The effects of the disruption to the global system of financing, trade, and production and the subsequent meltdown of the American economy were soon felt throughout Europe. In 1930 and 1931, in particular, unemployed workers went on strike, demonstrated in public, and otherwise took direct action to call public attention to their plight. Within

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2176-427: The United States. Historians still debate whether the 1929 crash sparked the Great Depression or if it merely coincided with bursting a loose credit-inspired economic bubble. Only 16% of American households were invested in the stock market within the United States during the period leading up to this depression, suggesting that the crash carried somewhat less weight in causing it. However, the psychological effects of

2244-404: The art director position, he continued to design covers for Mercury.The Mercury Press name continued on Fantasy and Science Fiction (eventually its only publication) under Joseph and his son Edward L. Ferman until F&SF was sold to Gordon Van Gelder in 2000. The American Mercury The American Mercury was an American magazine published from 1924 to 1981. It was founded as

2312-483: The beginning of the worldwide Great Depression , which lasted until 1939, is considered the most devastating in the country's history. It is most associated with October 24, 1929, known as "Black Thursday", when about 12.9 million shares were traded on the NYSE in a single day (as compared to an average of 4 million), and October 29, 1929, "Black Tuesday", when some 16.4 million shares were traded. The " Roaring Twenties " of

2380-445: The brainchild of H. L. Mencken and drama critic George Jean Nathan . The magazine featured writing by some of the most important writers in the United States through the 1920s and 1930s. After a change in ownership in the 1940s, the magazine attracted conservative writers, including William F. Buckley . A second change in ownership in the 1950s turned the magazine into a far-right and virulently anti-Semitic publication. It

2448-715: The circulation was over 42,000. In early 1928, the circulation reached a height of over 84,000, but declined steadily after the stock market crash of 1929 . The magazine published writing by Conrad Aiken , Sherwood Anderson , James Branch Cabell , W. J. Cash , Lincoln Ross Colcord , Thomas Craven , Clarence Darrow , W. E. B. Du Bois , John Fante , William Faulkner , F. Scott Fitzgerald , Albert Halper , Langston Hughes , James Weldon Johnson , Zora Neale Hurston , Sinclair Lewis , Meridel LeSueur , Edgar Lee Masters , Victor Folke Nelson , Albert Jay Nock , Eugene O'Neill , Carl Sandburg , William Saroyan , and George Schuyler . Nathan provided theater criticism, and Mencken wrote

2516-543: The crash reverberated across the nation as businesses became aware of the difficulties in securing capital market investments for new projects and expansions. Business uncertainty naturally affects job security for employees, and as the American worker (the consumer) faced uncertainty with regard to income, naturally the propensity to consume declined. The decline in stock prices caused bankruptcies and severe macroeconomic difficulties, including contraction of credit, business closures, firing of workers, bank failures, decline of

2584-409: The crash, economist Irving Fisher famously proclaimed "Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau". The optimism and the financial gains of the great bull market were shaken after a well-publicized September 8 prediction from financial expert Roger Babson that "a crash is coming, and it may be terrific". The initial September decline was thus called the "Babson Break" in

2652-537: The economic warning signs and the market breaks in March and May 1929, stocks resumed their advance in June, and the gains continued almost unabated until early September 1929 (the Dow Jones average gained more than 20% between June and September). The market had been on a nine-year run that saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average increase in value tenfold, peaking at 381.17 on September 3, 1929. Shortly before

2720-505: The economy where output was declining and unemployment was increasing, so the purchase price of stocks greatly exceeded their real value. By September 1929, more experienced shareholders realized that prices could not continue to rise and began to get rid of their holdings, which caused share values to stall and then fall, encouraging more to sell. As investors panicked, the selling became frenzied. After Black Thursday, leading bankers joined forces to purchase stock at prices above market value,

2788-507: The end of September, the market had dropped 10% from the peak (the "Babson Break"). Selling intensified in early and mid-October, with sharp down days punctuated by a few up days. Panic selling of massive proportion started the week of October 21 and intensified and culminated on October 24, October 28, and especially October 29 ("Black Tuesday"). The president of the Chase National Bank, Albert H. Wiggin , said at

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2856-431: The face value of the stocks that they were buying. Over $ 8.5 billion was out on loan, more than the entire amount of currency circulating in the United States at the time. The rising share prices encouraged more people to invest on the hope that share prices would rise further. Speculation thus fueled further rises and created an economic bubble . Because of margin buying , investors stood to lose large sums of money if

2924-411: The first six months of 1929, of 36.6% over 1928, itself a record half-year. Iron and steel led the way with doubled gains. Such figures set up a crescendo of stock-exchange speculation that led hundreds of thousands of Americans to invest heavily in the stock market. Many people were borrowing money to buy more stocks. By August 1929, brokers were routinely lending small investors more than two-thirds of

2992-519: The founder of the American Nazi Party . Between 1957 and 1958, William LaVarre served as editor. In January 1959, Maguire published an American Mercury editorial supporting a theory that there was a Jewish conspiracy for world domination. Maguire did not remain long as the magazine's owner/publisher, but other owners continued in that direction. Maguire sold the Mercury to the Defenders of

3060-481: The index in less than three years. Beginning on March 15, 1933, and continuing through the rest of the 1930s, the Dow began to slowly regain the ground it had lost. The largest percentage increases of the Dow Jones occurred during the early and mid-1930s. In late 1937, there was a sharp dip in the stock market, but prices held well above the 1932 lows. The Dow Jones did not return to its peak close of September 3, 1929, for 25 years, until November 23, 1954. In 1932,

3128-496: The largest financial crisis of the 20th century. The panic of October 1929 has come to serve as a symbol of the economic contraction that gripped the world during the next decade. The falls in share prices on October 24 and 29, 1929 were practically instantaneous in all financial markets, except Japan. The Wall Street Crash had a major impact on the U.S. and world economy, and it has been the source of intense academic historical, economic, and political debate from its aftermath until

3196-432: The magazine again. Spivak created a company to publish the magazine, Mercury Publications . Soon, the company began publishing other magazines, including Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (1941) and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1949. In 1945, as editor, Lawrence Spivak created a radio program called American Mercury Presents "Meet the Press" . It started on television on November 6, 1947, as Meet

3264-646: The market turned down or even if it failed to advance quickly enough. The average price to earnings ratio of S&P Composite stocks was 32.6 in September 1929, clearly above historical norms. According to the economist John Kenneth Galbraith , the exuberance also resulted in a large number of people placing their savings and money in leverage investment products like Goldman Sachs 's "Blue Ridge trust" and "Shenandoah Trust", which crashed in 1929 as well, resulting in losses to banks of $ 475 billion in 2010 dollars ($ 663.68 billion in 2023). Good harvests had built up

3332-549: The money supply caused by Federal Reserve decisions had a severely contractionary effect on output. Despite the inherent risk of speculation , it was widely believed that the stock market would continue to rise forever. On March 25, 1929, after the Federal Reserve warned of excessive speculation, a small crash occurred as investors started to sell stocks at a rapid pace, exposing the market's shaky foundation. Two days later, banker Charles E. Mitchell announced that his company,

3400-406: The money supply, and other economically depressing events. The resultant rise of mass unemployment is seen as a result of the crash, although the crash is by no means the sole event that contributed to the depression. The Wall Street Crash is usually seen as having the greatest impact on the events that followed and therefore is widely regarded as signaling the downward economic slide that initiated

3468-695: The position was saved by a severe drought in the Dakotas and the Canadian West, as well as unfavorable seed times in Argentina and eastern Australia. The oversupply was now wanted to fill the gaps in the 1929 world wheat production. From 97¢ per bushel in May, the price of wheat rose to $ 1.49 in July. When it was seen that figure would make American farmers get more for their crop that year than in 1928, stocks went up again. In August,

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3536-529: The present day. Some people believed that abuses by utility holding companies contributed to the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression that followed. Many people blamed the crash on commercial banks that were too eager to put deposits at risk on the stock market. In 1930, 1,352 banks held more than $ 853 million in deposits; in 1931, one year later, 2,294 banks failed with nearly $ 1.7 billion in deposits. Many businesses failed (28,285 failures and

3604-588: The press. That was the start of the Great Crash, but until the severe phase of the crash in October, many investors regarded the September "Babson Break" as a "healthy correction" and buying opportunity. On September 20, 1929, top British investor Clarence Hatry and many of his associates were jailed for fraud and forgery, leading to the suspension of his companies. This may have weakened the confidence of Americans in their own companies, although it had minimal impact on

3672-738: The previous decade had been a time of industrial expansion in the U.S., and much of the profit had been invested in speculation , including in stocks. Many members of the public, disappointed by the low interest rates offered on their bank deposits, committed their relatively small sums to stockbrokers . By 1929, the U.S. economy was showing signs of trouble; the agricultural sector was depressed due to overproduction and falling prices, forcing many farmers into debt, and consumer goods manufacturers also had unsellable output due to low wages and thus low purchasing power . Factory owners cut production and fired staff, reducing demand even further. Despite these trends, investors continued to buy shares in areas of

3740-453: The price had fallen to $ 1.31 per bushel. Other important economic barometers were also slowing or even falling by mid-1929, including car sales, house sales, and steel production. The falling commodity and industrial production may have dented even American self-confidence, and the stock market peaked on September 3 at 381.17 just after Labor Day, and it started to falter after Roger Babson issued his prescient "market crash" forecast. By

3808-407: The public their confidence in the market, but their efforts failed to stop the large decline in prices. The massive volume of stocks traded that day made the ticker continue to run until about 7:45 p.m. After a one-day recovery on October 30, when the Dow regained 28.40 points, or 12.34%, to close at 258.47, the market continued to fall, arriving at an interim bottom on November 13, 1929, with

3876-844: The publisher of International Services of Information in Baltimore; his son Clendenin Jr. was a sponsor of William F. Buckley Jr. and the Young Americans for Freedom . Ryan transformed The American Mercury in a conservative direction. William Bradford Huie —whose work had appeared in the magazine before—had gleaned the beginning of a new, post- World War II American conservative intellectual movement. He sensed that Ryan had begun to guide The American Mercury toward that direction. He also introduced more mass-appeal writing, by figures such as Reverend Billy Graham and Federal Bureau of Investigation director J. Edgar Hoover . Huie seemed en route to producing

3944-469: The publisher, Mencken and Nathan created The American Mercury as "a serious review, the gaudiest and damnedest ever seen in the Republic", as Mencken explained the name (derived from a 19th-century publication) to his old friend and contributor Theodore Dreiser : What we need is something that looks highly respectable outwardly. The American Mercury is almost perfect for that purpose. What will go on inside

4012-431: The tent is another story. You will recall that the late P. T. Barnum got away with burlesque shows by calling them moral lectures. From 1924 through 1933, Mencken provided what he promised: elegantly irreverent observations of America, aimed at what he called "Americans realistically", those of sophisticated skepticism of enough that was popular and much that threatened to be. (Nathan was forced to resign as his co-editor

4080-401: The time: We are reaping the natural fruit of the orgy of speculation in which millions of people have indulged. It was inevitable, because of the tremendous increase in the number of stockholders in recent years, that the number of sellers would be greater than ever when the boom ended and selling took the place of buying. Together, the 1929 stock market crash and the Great Depression formed

4148-444: The title The Magazine of Fantasy . In the fall of 1950, Spivak sold The American Mercury to millionaire investment banker Clendenin J. Ryan , and his editor was William Bradford Huie . Joseph W. Ferman was the business manager of Mercury Publications from 1940 to 1950. The Mercury art director from 1938 to 1958 was designer George Salter , who created about 750 covers for Mercury Publications during that time frame. After leaving

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4216-468: The violation of public order. There is a debate among economists and historians as to what role the crash played in subsequent economic, social, and political events. The Economist argued in a 1998 article that the Depression did not start with the stock market crash, nor was it clear at the time of the crash that a depression was starting. They asked, "Can a very serious Stock Exchange collapse produce

4284-467: The wheat price fell when France and Italy were bragging about a magnificent harvest, and the situation in Australia improved. That sent a shiver through Wall Street and stock prices quickly dropped, but word of cheap stocks brought a fresh rush of "stags" (amateur speculators) and investors. Congress voted for a $ 100 million relief package for the farmers on the hope of stabilizing wheat prices, but by October,

4352-506: The world instituted measures to suspend trading in the event of rapid declines, claiming that the measures would prevent such panic sales. However, the one-day crash of Black Monday , October 19, 1987, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 22.6%, as well as Black Monday of March 16, 2020 (−12.9%), were worse in percentage terms than any single day of the 1929 crash (although the combined 25% decline of October 28–29, 1929,

4420-758: Was created in 2010. It was criticized by the Southern Poverty Law Center in the Winter 2013 edition of their magazine Intelligence Report , which called it a " Leo Frank Propaganda Site" and described it as "a resurrected and deeply anti-Semitic online version of H. L. Mencken’s defunct magazine of the same name". The Anti-Defamation League calls it "an extreme right-wing site with anti-Semitic content", while The Forward referred to it as "H.L. Mencken’s historic magazine, resurrected online by neo-Nazis several years ago", which had "published several revisionist articles to coincide with this year’s anniversary" of

4488-463: Was larger than that of October 19, 1987, and remains the worst two-day decline as of October 7, 2024 ). The crash followed a speculative boom that had taken hold in the late 1920s. During the latter half of the 1920s, steel production, building construction, retail turnover, automobiles registered, and even railway receipts advanced from record to record. The combined net profits of 536 manufacturing and trading companies showed an increase, in

4556-537: Was published monthly in New York City. The magazine went out of business in 1981, having spent the last 25 years of its existence in decline and controversy. H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan had previously edited The Smart Set literary magazine , when not producing their own books and, in Mencken's case, regular journalism for The Baltimore Sun . With their mutual book publisher Alfred A. Knopf Sr. serving as

4624-497: Was purchased from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., by Lawrence E. Spivak . The magazine's longtime business manager, Spivak announced that he would take an active role as publisher. Paul Palmer, former Sunday editor of the New York World , replaced Angoff as editor, and playwright Laurence Stallings was named literary editor . Spivak revived the Mercury for a brief but vigorous period — Mencken, Nathan, and Angoff contributed essays to

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