Printing For The Modern Age: Commerce, Craft, and Culture in the RR Donnelley Archive
Web Exhibits - Special Collections Research Center The University of Chicago Library
  • Introduction

  • Richard Robert Donnelley: Midwestern Business Pioneer
  • The Family and the Company
  • The Evolution of a Graphic Identity: The R.R. Donnelley Indianhead
  • The Architecture of Printing
  • Training Craftsmen: The R.R. Donnelley Apprentice Program
  • Craftsmanship by Example: Fine Binding
  • Early Advances in Technology
  • Research and Development After World War II
  • Promoting the Craft: The Four American Books Campaign
  • "Undivided Responsibility": R.R. Donnelley Advertising, 1920-1945
  • "Undivided Responsibility": R.R. Donnelley Advertising, 1946-1965
  • Promoting the Craft: Public Exhibitions in the Lakeside Press Galleries
  • Printer to the Modernist Movement: A Century of Progress
  • Graphic Design in the C. Prentiss Smith Papers
  • Imaging the Craft: Photography in the R.R. Donnelley Archive
  • Printer to Chicago
  • Mass-Market Magazines Part 1
  • Mass-Market Magazines Part 2
  • Mail-Order Catalogs
  • Printing for the National Marketplace
  • The R.R. Donnelley Community
  • Defining Moments of the Modern Age
  • R.R. Donnelley and World War II
  • Collections within a Collection: Scrapbooks, Ledgers, Albums

  • Exhibit Checklist
  • About the Exhibit
  • Rights and Reproductions

Mass-Market Magazines (part 2)

Growth at RR Donnelley was unprecedented after World War II. The reinvigorated consumer market required printing of all kinds, and this meant increased runs for existing RR Donnelley clients, as well as many new ones. Time, Inc., a long-time customer, moved Fortune magazine to RR Donnelley in 1948. That same year, a new client, Cowles Communications, signed a contract with Donnelley for the printing of Look. In 1954 the company became the printer of Sports Illustrated, a new Time, Inc. magazine catering to America's growing leisure culture.

Another coup for the company was securing the printing of the National Geographic Society monthly magazine in 1959. Society president Melville Bell Grosvenor wanted to print a four-color cover (previous covers featured only type, not images). RR Donnelley worked with National Geographic to test various papers, screens, and ink formulae to find a combination of rotogravure speed and quality production. In the end, RR Donnelley was able to print, bind, and mail 2.5 million monthly full-color copies of National Geographic.

RR Donnelley salesmen successfully captured three more large accounts-Scientific American, The New Yorker, and Sunset. At Scientific American, RR Donnelley successfully convinced the editors that the company could print scientific illustrations with precision. At The New Yorker, RR Donnelley engineers met the challenge of the magazine's extremely tight closing schedule with a technology that they had been investigating since 1955-facsimile wire transmission. After much testing, William Shawn, The New Yorker's legendary editor, was able to announce that the magazine was no longer being printed in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, but in Chicago, Illinois. The third major coup was Sunset magazine, which was published in San Francisco. Sunset's owner, Lane Publishing Company, was skeptical that the magazine could be produced in Chicago and distributed on the West Coast on time and for a reasonable price, but RR Donnelley once again overcame every objection. By the end of 1964, all three magazines were in production at RR Donnelley.

3a. Sports Illustrated, vol. 1, no.1, August 16, 1954.  Chicago:  Time, Inc., 1954. With mailing envelope. R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company Archive. 3a. Sports Illustrated, vol. 1, no.1, August 16, 1954. Chicago: Time, Inc., 1954. With mailing envelope. R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company Archive.
3b. Sports Illustrated, vol. 1, no.1, August 16, 1954.  Chicago:  Time, Inc., 1954. With mailing envelope. R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company Archive. 3b. Sports Illustrated, vol. 1, no.1, August 16, 1954.  Chicago:  Time, Inc., 1954. With mailing envelope. R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company Archive.
Printing For The Modern Age: Commerce, Craft And Culture in the RR Donnelley Archive. Kim Coventry and Maija Anderson.
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