Getty Museum

Irvin S. Cobb and Robert H. Davis, Editors of Munsey's Magazine

Date

1924–1925

Medium

Platinum print

Culture

American

Department

Photographs

Institution

Getty Museum

Object ID

8e873698-f2cd-489d-a94f-bcbfc1690b1f

In 1925 Doris Ulmann published forty-three gravure images in a deluxe volume called *A Portrait Gallery of American Editors*. She managed to obtain pictures of two women, Edna Woolman Chase of *Vogue* and Elizabeth Brown Cutting of the *North American Review*, but aside from these two photographs, the book consists of likenesses of such men as Frank Crowninshield, Robert H. Davis, H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan, and Carl Van Doren. The Getty's double portrait of Irvin Cobb (1876-1944) and Davis (1869-1942) was not chosen as one of the book's plates; a more revealing close-up of Davis (right) was published instead. Ulmann's preface gives these editors of contemporary journals a great deal of credit for forming popular opinion, even creating the current "perception of humour," but Davis's own commentary on his profession ends with a less elevated view: "Probably when the world's greatest editor is discovered it will be revealed that he thinks *like* the people instead of *for* them." Judith Keller. *Doris Ulmann*, In Focus: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1996), 26. ©1996, J. Paul Getty Trust.

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