Days like these: 21 February 1925

The first issue of The New Yorker appeared, founded by journalist Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a New York Times reporter. They envisaged a sophisticated, humorous magazine – Ross famously declared that “it is not edited for the old lady in Dubuque”, referring to a small city in Iowa. After surviving a precarious first few years, it gained a reputation for its serious journalism and fiction. Ross was in charge until his death in 1951.