1934-
Magazine Editor

Magazine Troubles.

Willie Morris, at thirty-two years old, became the youngest editor in chief in the history of Harper's magazine on 1 July 1967. He replaced John Fischer, the man who hired him and brought him to New York from Texas in 1963. Harper's in the 1960s was suffering from competition with television. In 1966 the magazine had 277,000 readers and $1.8 million in revenues, figures which belied the problems faced by narrowly focused news and literary magazines during the 1960s. Though Harper's had been revered and sustained by the literary elite, the magazine's owners and editors found that the traditional readership was not able to sustain Harper's financially.

Early Life.

The hiring of Morris was part of an editorial plan to bring the magazine more in line with the changing American society of the 1960s. Morris's background was certainly not that of the typical New York editor. He...