Article New York Evening Graphic and Composographs
Type: Inventing the News.
Summary: The story of publisher Bernarr MacFadden and The New York Evening Graphic, America’s first tabloid.
Posted by: Elliot Feldman
Although publisher Bernarr MacFadden’s newspaper,
The New York Evening Graphic, only lasted a few years, its impact on mass media is still felt today, for better or worse. One of the paper’s trademark features was the use of the pictorial “composograph.” These were “retouched” photo collages doctored to depict real events. In essence, this was digital manipulation long before the advent of Photoshop and other digital manipulation techniques used by some of today’s tabloids.
Composograph “events”
The Evening Graphic’s faked photographs included twenties superstar actor Rudolph Valentino on the surgeon’s table, and a faked execution chamber scene with the condemned man strapped into the electric chair. One notable cover page showed Valentino and opera star Enrico Caruso meeting in the afterlife. Critics soon dubbed The Evening Graphic
“The Porno Graphic.”
As a regular feature, the paper also included a daily multi-paneled pictorial re-enactment of news events that were staged and shot in a photographer’s studio.
The most notorious use of the “composograph” was for the sensational 1924 Rhinelander divorce trial.
The Rhinelander divorce trial
Wealthy New York socialite Leonard Kip Rhinelander married Alice Jones, a domestic servant. This act alone stirred gossip in New York’s social world.
After it was revealed that Jones’ father was African-American, Rhinelander sued for divorce on the grounds that his wife had hidden her mixed race origins from him. During the trial, Jones’ attorney had her strip to the waist as proof that her husband knew all along that she was black.
Because the court had barred photographers from witnessing this display,
The Evening Graphicstaged a composograph of Alice Jones displaying her nude torso to the all-white jury. The doctored photograph was composed of twenty separate photographs that included staged shots.
Bernarr MacFadden
Evening Graphic
publisher Bernarr MacFadden was himself a concoction. The son of a farmer, Bernard McFadden moved to New York City and changed his name to Bernarr MacFadden. He claimed that “Bernard” became “Bernarr” because he wanted his name to sound like a lion roar.
While publishing was his vocation, physical fitness and healthy living was his passion. In the 1890s, he established a health regimen movement and magazine called “Physical Culture.” MacFadden even claimed that he would live to age 150 because of his health regimen.
He wrote and published 100 fitness books, and at one point he even tried to turn his movement into a religion called “cosmotarianism.” He even opened several “healthatoriums” throughout the country, and built his own city in New Jersey called “Physical Culture City” where residents adhered to proscribed outdoor exercise programs and healthy living in natural surroundings. Some newspapers labeled it a nudist colony and MacFadden a crackpot.
His unusual beliefs eventually attracted authorities who arrested him, deeming his health publications as “obscene materials.”
Achievements
Despite
The Evening Graphic, Bernarr MacFadden was far from a fly-by-night publisher. His successes included the magazines “True Romance”, “True Story”, “Photoplay”, and “Sport.”
In 1903, he established The Coney Island Polar Bear Club where members would take dips in the ocean during freezing winter months. As of 2007, the Polar Bear Club is still going strong.
As for MacFadden, while he didn’t live to be 150, he did make it to 87, a ripe old age for 1955.
References
- http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6669/
- “Digital Truth”, PBS
- “Journal’s Execution”, Time.
- http://www.unc.edu/~rbstepno/graphic
- http://www.bernarrmacfadden.com/
- “True Romance”, D. Keith Mano, National Review
- Polar Bear Club
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernarr_McFadden
- http://www.sandowplus.co.uk/Macfadden/obit.htm
