Before movies, radio, and television challenged the hegemony of the printed word, the Saturday Evening Post was the preeminent vehicle of mass culture in the United States. And to the extent that a mass medium can be the expression of a single individual, this magazine, with a peak circulation of almost three million copies a week, was the expression of its editor, George Horace Lorimer. Cohn shows how Lorimer made the Post into a uniquely powerful magazine that both celebrated and helped form the values of the time.

Jan Cohn was G. Keith Funston Professor of American Literature and American Studies at Trinity College and the author of four other books, including Creating America (1989).