Look (American magazine)
magazine published in Des Moines, Iowa

Look was a biweekly, general-interest magazine published in Des Moines, Iowa, from March 1937 to October 1971, with editorial offices in New York City. Look began as a tabloid-style magazine emphasizing sports, movie stars, and sensationalism; after World War II, it became more family-oriented and covered social and political subjects, as well as personalities, food, fashion, and sports. It published many important articles about racial injustice and the civil rights movement. “A large-sized magazine of 11 in × 14 in (279 mm × 356 mm), it was a direct competitor to market leader Life. Look ceased publication in 1971.
Origin
Gardner "Mike" Cowles Jr. (1903–1985), the magazine's co-founder (with his brother John) and first editor, was executive editor of The Des Moines Register and The Des Moines Tribune. When the first issue went on sale in early 1937, it sold 705,000 copies.
Although planned to begin with the January 1937 issue, the actual first issue of Look to be distributed was the February 1937 issue, numbered as Volume 1, Number 2. It was published monthly for five issues (February–May 1937), then switched to biweekly starting with the May 11, 1937 issue.
“Look (American magazine)” enters the record as magazine published in Des Moines, Iowa. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Look, American and magazine can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Look (American magazine)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.