Life (magazine)

===19th century===
{{more citations needed section|date=June 2023}}
[[File:Coles Phillips2 Life.jpg|thumb|Cover art by [[Coles Phillips]] in the magazine's January 27, 1910 edition]]
[[File:LIFEMagazine24Jan1924.jpg|thumb|The cover of the magazine's January 24, 1924 issue]]
''Life'' was founded on January 4, 1883, in a [[New York City]] artist's studio at 1155 [[Broadway (Manhattan)|Broadway]], as a partnership between [[John Ames Mitchell]] and [[Andrew Miller (publisher)|Andrew Miller]]. Mitchell held a 75% interest in the magazine with the remaining 25% held by Miller. Both men retained their holdings until their deaths.<ref>{{cite web |title=Full text of "The miscellaneous reports: cases decided in the inferior courts of record of the state of New York" |url=https://archive.org/stream/miscellaneousre11yorkgoog/miscellaneousre11yorkgoog_djvu.txt |year=1892 |access-date=2012-01-15}}</ref> Miller served as secretary-treasurer of the magazine and managed the business side of the operation. Mitchell, a 37-year-old illustrator who used a $10,000 inheritance to invest in the weekly magazine, served as its publisher. He also created the first ''Life'' name-plate with [[cupid]]s as mascots and later on, drew its masthead of a knight leveling his lance at the posterior of a fleeing devil. Then he took advantage of a new printing process using zinc-coated plates, which improved the reproduction of his illustrations and artwork. This edge helped because ''Life'' faced stiff competition from the best-selling humor magazines ''[[Judge (magazine)|Judge]]'' and ''[[Puck (magazine)|Puck]]'', which were already established and successful. [[Edward Sandford Martin]] was brought on as ''Life''{{'}}s first literary editor; the recent [[Harvard University]] graduate was a founder of the ''[[Harvard Lampoon]]''.

The motto of the first issue of ''Life'' was: "While there's Life, there's hope."<ref name="Alive"/> The new magazine set forth its principles and policies to its readers:

<blockquote>We wish to have some fun in this paper...We shall try to domesticate as much as possible of the casual cheerfulness that is drifting about in an unfriendly world...We shall have something to say about religion, about politics, fashion, society, literature, the stage, the stock exchange, and the police station, and we will speak out what is in our mind as fairly, as truthfully, and as decently as we know how.<ref name="Alive">{{cite magazine|date=October 19, 1936|title=Life: Dead & Alive|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,756798,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110127201828/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,756798,00.html|archive-date=January 27, 2011|url-status=dead|magazine=TIME}}</ref></blockquote>

The magazine was a success and soon attracted the industry's leading contributors,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.oldmagazinearticles.com/search_list.php?search=Life_Magazine|title=Old Magazine Articles|website=www.oldmagazinearticles.com}}</ref> of which the most important was [[Charles Dana Gibson]]. Three years after the magazine was founded, the [[Massachusetts]] native first sold ''Life'' a drawing for $4: a dog outside his kennel howling at the Moon. Encouraged by a publisher, also an artist, Gibson was joined at ''Life'' by illustrators [[Palmer Cox]], creator of the [[Brownie (elf)|Brownie]], [[A. B. Frost]], [[Oliver Herford]], and [[E. W. Kemble]]. ''Life''{{'}}s literary roster included [[John Kendrick Bangs]], [[James Whitcomb Riley]], and [[Brander Matthews]].