Boom Times.

While the 1930s were a difficult decade for many businesses, magazine publishing flourished during the period. From the pulp magazines to the more respectable "slicks," magazines of widely varying content found a ready market among Americans who wanted either to read about, or, more usually, to distract themselves from, the troubles of the times. General magazines founded before the 1930s, such as the Saturday Evening Post and Reader's Digest, did well, as did Henry Luce's newsweekly Time. Several narrow-interest magazines also succeeded. Though the Depression would hardly seem an ideal time to launch a new business venture, many magazines that have lasted until the end of the twentieth century got their starts in the 1930s.

Success Stories.

Luce's business magazine Fortune, for instance, made its debut in 1930 and quickly offered some of the best contemporary treatments of the Depression. Its generous use...