The Nation

== History ==
=== Founding and journalistic roots ===
''The Nation'' was established on July 6, 1865, at 130 Nassau Street ("[[Park Row (Manhattan)|Newspaper Row]]") in [[Manhattan]]. Its founding coincided with the closure of the abolitionist newspaper ''[[The Liberator (newspaper)|The Liberator]]'',<ref>''The Anti-Slavery Reporter'', August 1, 1865, p. 187.</ref> also in 1865, after slavery was abolished by the [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution]]; a group of abolitionists, led by the architect [[Frederick Law Olmsted]], desired to found a new weekly political magazine. [[Edwin Lawrence Godkin]], who had been considering starting such a magazine for some time, agreed and so became the first editor of ''The Nation''.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|first=Eric|last=Fettman|contribution=Godkin, E. L.|editor-first=Stephen L.|editor-last=Vaughn|title=Encyclopedia of American Journalism|location=London|publisher=[[Routledge]]|year=2009|isbn=9780415969505|page=200}}</ref> [[Wendell Phillips Garrison]], son of ''The Liberator''{{'}}s editor/publisher [[William Lloyd Garrison]], was Literary Editor from 1865 to 1906.

Its founding publisher was Joseph H. Richards; the editor was Godkin, an [[Irish American|immigrant from Ireland]] who had formerly worked as a correspondent of the London ''[[The Daily News (UK)|Daily News]]'' and ''[[The New York Times]]''.<ref>{{Cite journal |first=John Bassett |last=Moore |title=Proceedings at the Semi-Centennial Dinner: The Biltmore, April 19, 1917 |journal=The Nation |volume=104 |issue=2704 |date=April 27, 1917 |at=section 2, pp. 502–503 }}</ref><ref name="ja">{{cite encyclopedia |first=James |last=Aucoin |title=The Nation |editor-first=Stephen L. |editor-last=Vaughn |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of American Journalism |location=New York |publisher=Routledge |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-415-96950-5 |pages=317–8 }}</ref> Godkin sought to establish what one sympathetic commentator later characterized as "an organ of opinion characterized in its utterance by breadth and deliberation, an organ which should identify itself with causes, and which should give its support to parties primarily as representative of these causes."<ref name=Moore503>Moore, "Proceedings at the Semi-Centennial Dinner", p. 503.</ref>

In its "founding prospectus" the magazine wrote that the publication would have "seven main objects" with the first being "discussion of the topics of the day, and, above all, of legal, economical, and constitutional questions, with greater accuracy and moderation than are now to be found in the daily press."<ref name="FoundingProspectus">{{cite news |author=Richards |first=Joseph H. |date=July 6, 1865 |title=Founding Prospectus |work=The Nation |url=http://www.thenation.com/article/founding-prospectus/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150709125914/http://www.thenation.com/article/founding-prospectus/ |archive-date=2015-07-09}}</ref> ''The Nation'' pledged to "not be the organ of any party, sect or body" but rather to "make an earnest effort to bring to discussion of political and social questions a really critical spirit, and to wage war upon the vices of violence, exaggeration and misrepresentation by which so much of the political writing of the day is marred."<ref name="FoundingProspectus"/>

In the first year of publication, one of the magazine's regular features was ''The South As It Is'',<ref>{{cite book |last1=Dennett |first1=John R. |title=The South As It Is: 1865–1866 |date=2010 |publisher=University of Alabama Press}}</ref> dispatches from a [[Economy of South Carolina#War and economic recovery|tour of the war-torn region]] by John Richard Dennett, a recent [[Harvard University|Harvard]] graduate and a veteran of the [[Port Royal Experiment]]. Dennett interviewed [[Confederate States of America|Confederate]] veterans, freed slaves, agents of the [[Freedmen's Bureau]], and ordinary people he met by the side of the road.

Among the causes supported by the publication in its earliest days was civil service reform—moving the basis of government employment from a [[political patronage]] system to a professional [[bureaucracy]] based upon [[meritocracy]].<ref name=Moore503 /> ''The Nation'' also was preoccupied with the reestablishment of a sound national currency in the years after the [[American Civil War]], arguing that a stable [[currency]] was necessary to restore the economic stability of the nation.<ref>Moore, "Proceedings at the Semi-Centennial Dinner", pp. 503–504.</ref> Closely related to this was the publication's advocacy of the elimination of [[protective tariffs]] in favor of lower prices of consumer goods associated with a [[free trade]] system.<ref name=Moore504>Moore, "Proceedings at the Semi-Centennial Dinner", p. 504.</ref>

[[File:(King1893NYC) pg617 THE EVENING POST AND THE NATION, EVENING POST BUILDING (cropped).jpg|thumb|left|''The Evening Post'' and ''The Nation'', 210 Broadway, Manhattan, New York]]
The magazine would stay at [[Park Row (Manhattan)|Newspaper Row]] for 90 years.

=== From 1880s literary supplement to 1930s New Deal booster ===
In 1881, newspaperman-turned-railroad-baron [[Henry Villard]] acquired ''The Nation'' and converted it into a weekly literary supplement for his daily newspaper the ''[[New York Post|New York Evening Post]]''. The offices of the magazine were moved to the ''Evening Post''{{'}}s headquarters at 210 Broadway. [[New York Post|The ''New York Evening Post'']] would later morph into a [[tabloid (newspaper format)|tabloid]], the ''[[New York Post]]'', a left-leaning afternoon tabloid, under owner [[Dorothy Schiff]] from 1939 to 1976. Since then, it has been a [[conservatism in the United States|conservative]] tabloid owned by [[Rupert Murdoch]], while ''The Nation'' became known for its left-wing ideology.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.cjr.org/the_delacorte_lectures/the_nation_jacobin.php|title='What's bad for the nation is good for The Nation'|website=Columbia Journalism Review|first=Carlett |last=Spike|language=en|date=December 9, 2016|access-date=January 14, 2019}}</ref>

In 1900, Henry Villard's son, [[Oswald Garrison Villard]], inherited the magazine and the ''Evening Post'', and sold off the latter in 1918. Thereafter, he remade ''The Nation'' into a [[current affairs (news format)|current affairs]] publication and gave it an anti-[[Classical liberalism|classical liberal]] orientation. Oswald Villard welcomed the [[New Deal]] and supported the [[nationalization]] of industries&nbsp;– thus reversing the meaning of "[[liberalism]]" as the founders of ''The Nation'' would have understood the term, from a belief in a smaller and more restricted government to a belief in a larger and less restricted government.<ref>Carey McWilliams, "One Hundred Years of The Nation." ''Journalism Quarterly'' 42.2 (1965): 189–197.</ref><ref>Dollena Joy Humes, ''Oswald Garrison Villard: Liberal of the 1920s'' (Syracuse University Press, 1960).</ref> Villard sold the magazine in 1935. [[Maurice Wertheim]], the new owner, sold it in 1937 to [[Freda Kirchwey]], who served as editor from 1933 to 1955.

Almost every editor of ''The Nation'' from Villard's time to the 1970s was looked at for "subversive" activities and ties.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Kimball |first=Penn |title=The History of ''The Nation'' According to the FBI |journal=The Nation |date=March 22, 1986 |pages=399–426 |issn=0027-8378}}</ref> When [[Albert Jay Nock]] published a column criticizing [[Samuel Gompers]] and trade unions for being complicit in the war machine of the [[World War I|First World War]], ''The Nation'' was briefly suspended from the US mail.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Wreszin, Michael |year=1969 |title=Albert Jay Nock and the Anarchist Elitist Tradition in America |journal=[[American Quarterly]] |volume=21 |issue=2 |doi=10.2307/2711573|publisher=The Johns Hopkins University Press|jstor=2711573 |page=173 |quote=It was probably the only time any publication was suppressed in America for attacking a labor leader, but the suspension seemed to document Nock's charges.}}</ref>

=== World War II and early Cold War ===
The magazine's financial problems in the early 1940s prompted Kirchwey to sell her individual ownership of the magazine in 1943, creating a [[Nonprofit organization|nonprofit]] organization, Nation Associates, out of the money generated from a recruiting drive of sponsors. This organization was also responsible for academic affairs, including conducting research and organizing conferences, that had been a part of the early history of the magazine. Nation Associates became responsible for the operation and publication of the magazine on a nonprofit basis, with Kirchwey as both president of Nation Associates and editor of ''The Nation''.<ref>{{cite book|title=Freda Kirchwey: A Woman of the Nation|first=Sara|last=Alpern|publisher=President and Fellows of Harvard College|date=1987|isbn=0-674-31828-5|pages=[https://archive.org/details/fredakirchweywom0000alpe/page/156 156–161]|url=https://archive.org/details/fredakirchweywom0000alpe/page/156}}</ref>

Before the attack on [[Pearl Harbor]], ''The Nation'' repeatedly called on the United States to enter World War II to resist [[fascism]], and after the US entered the war, the publication supported the American war effort.<ref name="pfb">{{cite book |first=Paul F. |last=Boller |chapter=Hiroshima and the American Left |title=Memoirs of An Obscure Professor and Other Essays |location=Fort Worth |publisher=Texas Christian University Press |year=c. 1992 |isbn=0-87565-097-X}}</ref> It also supported the use of the [[Nuclear weapon|atomic bomb]] on [[Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki|Hiroshima]].<ref name="pfb" />

During the late 1940s and again in the early 1950s, a merger was discussed by Kirchwey (later [[Carey McWilliams (journalist)|Carey McWilliams]]) and ''[[The New Republic]]''{{'}}s [[Michael Straight]]. The two magazines were very similar at that time — both were left of center, ''The Nation'' further left than ''TNR''; both had circulations around 100,000, although ''TNR''{{'}}s was slightly higher; and both lost money. It was thought that the two magazines could unite and make the most powerful journal of opinion. The new publication would have been called ''The Nation and New Republic''. Kirchwey was the most hesitant, and both attempts to merge failed. The two magazines would later take very different paths: ''The Nation'' achieved a higher circulation, and ''The New Republic'' moved more to the [[Neoconservatism|right]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Navasky |first=Victor S. |title=The Merger that Wasn't |journal=The Nation |date=January 1, 1990 |issn=0027-8378}}</ref>

In the 1950s, ''The Nation'' was attacked as "pro-communist" because of its advocacy of [[détente]] with the [[Soviet Empire|expansionist]] [[Soviet Union]] of [[Joseph Stalin]], and its criticism of [[McCarthyism]].<ref name="ja" /> One of the magazine's writers, [[Louis Fischer]], resigned from the magazine afterwards, claiming ''The Nation''{{'}}s foreign coverage was too pro-Soviet.<ref name="fk">{{cite book |last=Alpern |first=Sara |url=https://archive.org/details/fredakirchweywom0000alpe/page/162 |title=Freda Kirchwey, a Woman of the Nation |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1987 |isbn=0-674-31828-5 |location=Boston |pages=[https://archive.org/details/fredakirchweywom0000alpe/page/162 162–5]}}</ref> Despite this, [[Diana Trilling]] pointed out that Kirchwey did allow anti-Soviet writers, such as herself, to contribute material critical of Russia to the magazine's arts section.<ref>{{cite book |first=James |last=Seaton |title=Cultural Conservatism, Political Liberalism: From Criticism to Cultural Studies |publisher=University of Michigan Press |year=1996 |isbn=0-472-10645-7 |page=71 }}</ref>

During McCarthyism (the Second Red Scare), ''The Nation'' was banned from several school libraries in New York City and Newark,<ref name=dc>{{cite book |first=David |last=Caute |author-link=David Caute |title=The Great Fear: the Anti-Communist purge under Truman and Eisenhower |location=London |publisher=Secker and Warburg |year=1978 |isbn=0-436-09511-4 |page=454}}</ref> and a [[Bartlesville, Oklahoma]], librarian, [[Ruth Brown (librarian)|Ruth Brown]], was fired from her job in 1950, after a citizens committee complained she had given shelf space to ''The Nation''.<ref name=dc />

In 1955, George C. Kirstein replaced Kirchway as magazine owner.<ref>{{Cite news| issn = 0362-4331| title = KIRCHWEY REGIME QUITS THE NATION; Weekly's Editor - Publisher Turns It Over to Carey McWilliams, G. C. Kirstein| work = The New York Times| access-date = December 2, 2018| date = September 15, 1955| url = https://www.nytimes.com/1955/09/15/archives/kirchwey-regime-quits-the-nation-weeklys-editor-publisher-turns-it.html |url-access=subscription }}</ref> [[James J. Storrow Jr.]] bought the magazine from Kirstein in 1965.<ref>{{Cite news| issn = 0362-4331| last = Sibley| first = John| title = NATION MAGAZINE SOLD TO PRODUCER; Storrow Taking Over Liberal Weekly From Kirstein for an Undisclosed Price POLICY TO BE RETAINED Staff Also Will Be Kept, New Owner Says -- First Editor Began in 1856| work = The New York Times| access-date = December 2, 2018| date = December 27, 1965| url = https://www.nytimes.com/1965/12/27/archives/nation-magazine-sold-to-producer-storrow-taking-over-liberal-weekly.html |url-access=subscription }}</ref>

During the 1950s, [[Paul Blanshard]], a former associate editor, served as ''The Nation''{{'}}s special correspondent in [[Uzbekistan]]. His most famous writing was a series of articles attacking the [[Catholic Church]] in America as a dangerous, powerful, and undemocratic institution.

=== 1970s to 2022 ===
In June 1979, ''The Nation''{{'}}s publisher [[Hamilton Fish V|Hamilton Fish]] and then-editor [[Victor Navasky]] moved the magazine to 72 [[Fifth Avenue]], in [[Manhattan]]. In June 1998, the periodical had to move to make way for [[condominium]] development. The offices of ''The Nation'' are now at 33 Irving Place, in Manhattan's [[Gramercy, Manhattan|Gramercy Park]] neighborhood.

In 1977, a group organized by [[Hamilton Fish V]] bought the magazine from the Storrow family.<ref>{{Cite news| issn = 0362-4331| last = Carmody| first = Deirdre| title = Nation Magazine Sold to Group Led by Hamilton Fish| work = The New York Times| access-date = December 2, 2018| date = December 23, 1977| url = https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/23/archives/nation-magazine-sold-to-group-led-by-hamilton-fish.html}}</ref> In 1985, he sold it to [[Arthur L. Carter]], who had made a fortune as a founding partner of [[Carter, Berlind, Potoma & Weill]].

In 1991, ''The Nation'' sued the [[United States Department of Defense|Department of Defense]] for restricting free speech by limiting [[Gulf War]] coverage to [[press pool]]s. However, the issue was found [[Mootness|moot]] in ''[[Nation Magazine v. United States Department of Defense]]'', because the war ended before the case was heard.

In 1995, Victor Navasky bought the magazine and, in 1996, became publisher. In 1995, [[Katrina vanden Heuvel]] succeeded Navasky as editor of ''The Nation'', and in 2005, as publisher.

In 2015, ''The Nation'' celebrated its 150th anniversary with a documentary film by Academy Award-winning director [[Barbara Kopple]]; a 268-page special issue<ref>{{cite news |title=150th Anniversary Special Issue |work=The Nation |url=http://www.thenation.com/article/150th-anniversary-issue/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150706114213/http://www.thenation.com/article/150th-anniversary-issue/ |archive-date=2015-07-06}}</ref> featuring pieces of art and writing from the archives, and new essays by frequent contributors like [[Eric Foner]], [[Noam Chomsky]], [[E. L. Doctorow]], [[Toni Morrison]], [[Rebecca Solnit]], and [[Vivian Gornick]]; a book-length history of the magazine by [[D. D. Guttenplan]] (which ''[[The Times Literary Supplement]]'' called "an affectionate and celebratory affair"); events across the country; and a relaunched website. In a tribute to ''The Nation'', published in the anniversary issue, President [[Barack Obama]] said:

<blockquote class="templatequote">
In an era of instant, 140-character news cycles and reflexive toeing of the party line, it's incredible to think of the 150-year history of ''The Nation''. It's more than a magazine&nbsp;— it's a crucible of ideas forged in the time of Emancipation, tempered through depression and war and the civil-rights movement, and honed as sharp and relevant as ever in an age of breathtaking technological and economic change. Through it all, ''The Nation'' has exhibited that great American tradition of expanding our moral imaginations, stoking vigorous dissent, and simply taking the time to think through our country's challenges anew. If I agreed with everything written in any given issue of the magazine, it would only mean that you are not doing your jobs. But whether it is your commitment to a fair shot for working Americans, or equality for all Americans, it is heartening to know that an American institution dedicated to provocative, reasoned debate and reflection in pursuit of those ideals can continue to thrive.
</blockquote>

On January 14, 2016, ''The Nation'' endorsed [[Vermont]] [[United States Senate|Senator]] [[Bernie Sanders]] for [[President of the United States|President]]. In their reasoning, the editors of ''The Nation'' professed that "Bernie Sanders and his supporters are bending the arc of history toward justice. Theirs is an insurgency, a possibility, and a dream that we proudly endorse."<ref>{{Cite news|title = Bernie Sanders for President|url = http://www.thenation.com/article/bernie-sanders-for-president/|newspaper = The Nation|access-date = January 14, 2016|issn = 0027-8378}}</ref>

On June 15, 2019, Heuvel stepped down as editor; [[D. D. Guttenplan]], the editor-at-large, took her place.<ref name="june2019">{{cite web |last1=Hsu |first1=Tiffany |title=Katrina vanden Heuvel to Step Down as Editor of The Nation |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/08/business/media/katrina-vanden-heuvel-the-nation.html |website=The New York Times |access-date=April 8, 2019 |date=April 8, 2019}}</ref>

On March 2, 2020, ''The Nation'' again endorsed Vermont United States Senate|Senator Bernie Sanders for President of the United States|President. In their reasoning, the editors of ''The Nation'' professed: "As we find ourselves on a hinge of history—a generation summoned to the task of redeeming our democracy and restoring our republic—no one ever has to wonder what Bernie Sanders stands for."<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|title = 'The Nation' Endorses Bernie Sanders and His Movement|url = https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/endorsement-2020-bernie-sanders/|newspaper = The Nation|access-date = March 2, 2020|issn = 0027-8378}}</ref>

On February 23, 2022, ''The Nation'' named ''[[Jacobin (magazine)|Jacobin]]'' founder [[Bhaskar Sunkara]] its new president.<ref>{{cite web|date=February 23, 2022|title=The Nation Names Bhaskar Sunkara its New President|url=https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/bhaskar-sunkara-president/|access-date=February 24, 2022|website=The Nation}}</ref> In December 2023, Sunkara announced the magazine would be switching from a biweekly format to a larger monthly publication.<ref name=":1">{{Cite news |last=Dwyer |first=Kate |date=11 December 2023 |title=The Nation Magazine to Become Monthly |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/11/business/the-nation-magazine.html |access-date=11 December 2023}}</ref>