The Chicagoan

The Chicagoan, published from 1926 to 1935 in Chicago, was explicitly modeled on the New Yorker in both its graphic design and editorial content. The magazine aimed to portray the city as a cultural hub and counter its image as a place of violence and vice. It was first issued biweekly and then, in a larger format, monthly, ceasing publication in the midst of the Depression. The magazine received little national attention during its lifetime and few copies survive. This digital collection reproduces the near-complete run in the University of Chicago Library with issues supplied from other collections where possible.

Neil Harris, Preston and Sterling Morton Professor Emeritus of History, Departments of History and Art History, University of Chicago, came across the University of Chicago Library’s run of The Chicagoan in 1988, while browsing in the stacks of Regenstein Library. Professor Harris explores the magazine’s cultural ambitions, editors, artists and contributors, and sophisticated design in his beautiful volume, The Chicagoan: A Lost Magazine of the Jazz Age, which includes an introductory essay, a sampling of individual sections of the magazine, and the reproduction of one full issue.

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