The Making of Essence Miglena Sternadori

Journal of Magazine Media, Volume 17, Number 1, Summer 2016, (Review)

Published by University of Nebraska Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/jmm.2016.0003

For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/773667/summary

[ Access provided at 2 Oct 2021 12:41 GMT with no institutional affiliation ] The Making of Essence

Book Review: The Making of Essence

Miglena Sternadori, Texas Tech University [email protected]

The Man from Essence: Creating a Magazine for Black Women. Edward Lewis, with Audrey Edwards. Atria Books, 2014. 336 pp. hardcover.

Is Essence magazine a business or a social service organization? “Both, if the business is run right,” publisher Ed Lewis told the company’s board more than once, according to his memoir outlining the history of the first mainstream magazine for black women, which launched in 1970.

The Man from Essence, narrated from a first-person perspective, is full of insights about the magazine business as well as the history of race and gender relations in the U.S. The magazine’s target audience was “strivers”—educated and upwardly mobile African- American women who fearlessly carved their career paths and social trajectories in a racist society.

Reflecting its audience, Essence itself broke ground in more ways than one, according to Lewis’s account. It was the first women’s magazine to publish an annual men’s issue, showcase plus-sized models, spotlight major international stories, discuss spirituality, and establish relationships with prominent celebrities—including by being the first to feature Oprah Winfrey on its cover in 1986. As it earned money and clout, Essence was also unique in its political involvement, sometimes turning down ads or canceling planned events to protest racial injustice. In 1997 the company helped launch Latina magazine, the first national publication to target and serve Hispanic women.

Lewis, who is a former president of the Magazine Publishers Association, keeps the reader engaged with fascinating tidbits about the history of the magazine industry. Who knew that the magazine unit of Time Inc. was generating $1.2 billion in revenues by 2000? Or that intrepreneurship—allowing an employee to run a business within a business—used to be a thing? Or that the advertising budget of General Foods for all black media in 1970 was only $118,000?

The Man from Essence makes a contribution to the history of American magazines by painting a detailed picture of the social and political context in which Essence grew its brand and clout over several decades. The book is an informative read, considering that black and niche magazines are otherwise rarely in the spotlight of mainstream media or media scholars. The silence tends to be broken only when such publications commit a gaffe or change owners —for example, this year’s sale of Ebony and Jet to black-owned Clear View Group or the 2005 acquisition of Essence by white-owned Time Warner.

A downside of Lewis’s memoir is that it often fleshes out the magazine’s history in an overly dramatic fashion. At times, The Man from Essence claims cause and effect with a level

Journal of Magazine & New Media Research 1 Vol. 17, No. 1 • Summer 2016 The Making of Essence of certainty that most social scientists might find objectionable. For example, Lewis states in the introduction: “What I do know as surely as I know my name is that without Essence there would have been no black female secretary of state. And no black first lady in the White House” (p. xxiii).

Similarly, other statements demonstrate reductionist and heteronormative perspectives, such as the glittering generalization about “all the things all men talk about: women, sports, money, politics, the job” (p. 16) and the description of Lewis’s mother as a “woman with curves in all the right places” and “a real head turner, with great legs” (p. 49). A rapturous endorsement from fallen role model Bill Cosby and a glowing foreword by his wife—former Essence board director Camille Cosby, whose own reputation is now marred by her insensitive defense of her husband’s sexual assaults—further weakens the book’s credibility.

Indirectly mirroring the 1992 autobiographical account Against All Odds by John H. Johnson—longtime publisher of black-consumer magazines Ebony and Jet, launched in 1945 and 1951—The Man from Essence should serve as a reminder that the history of black media, and black magazines in particular, requires more attention. While the autobiographical accounts of their founders may provide scholars and students of media history with a much- needed starting point, such documents tend to be limited by their self-congratulatory perspective, in the end falling disappointingly short of the depth and sophistication central to social scientific research.

Journal of Magazine & New Media Research 2 Vol. 17, No. 1 • Summer 2016