Литературный журнал «Knickerbocker»: История и вклад в американскую культуру.

Defunct literary magazine

The Knickerbocker, or New York Monthly Magazine, was a literary magazine of New York City, founded by Charles Fenno Hoffman in 1833, and published until 1865. Its long term editor and publisher was Lewis Gaylord Clark, whose "Editor's Table" column was a staple of the magazine. The circle of writers who contributed to the magazine and populated its cultural milieu are often known as the "Knickerbocker writers" or the "Knickerbocker Group". The group included such authors as William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell and many others. The Knickerbocker was devoted to the fine arts in particular with occasional news, editorials and a few full length biographical sketches. The magazine was one of the earliest literary vehicles for communication about the United States' "vanishing wilderness." As such, The Knickerbocker may be considered one of the earliest proto environmental magazines in the United States.

Charles Fenno Hoffman was the founding editor of The Knickerbocker in 1833, though he helmed only three issues. Hoffman turned the magazine over to Timothy Flint, who changed the original name The Knickerbacker to The Knickerbocker. Flint then sold the magazine to Lewis Gaylord Clark, who bought it in April 1834 and served as editor until 1861. By 1840, The Knickerbocker was the most influential literary publication of its time. The year before, Washington Irving had reluctantly joined the staff at a salary of $2,000 a year and would stay on staff until 1841. Irving disliked magazine work, specifically because of its monthly deadlines and space constraints. However, in his "Geoffrey Crayon" persona, he justified his choice in his debut issue: "I am tired of writing volumes there is too much preparation, arrangement, and parade I have thought, therefore, of securing to myself a snug corner in some periodical work, where I might, as it were, loll at my ease in my elbow chair." The circle of writers who contributed to the magazine and populated its cultural milieu are often known as the "Knickerbocker writers" or the "Knickerbocker Group". The group included such authors as Washington Irving, William Cullen Bryant, James Kirke Paulding, Gulian Crommelin Verplanck, Fitz Greene Halleck, Joseph Rodman Drake, Robert Charles Sands, Lydia M. Child, Nathaniel Parker Willis, and Epes Sargent. Other writers associated with the group include Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, Bayard Taylor, George William Curtis, Richard Henry Stoddard, Elizabeth Clementine Stedman, John Greenleaf Whittier, Horace Greeley, James Fenimore Cooper, Fitz Hugh Ludlow and Frederick Swartwout Cozzens. The Knickerbocker was one of the earliest publications of its type to pay its contributing writers. Morris Phillips (1834–1904), for a short period beginning in 1862, owned and edited the magazine. He later had been associated with the poet, Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806–1867), as associate editor of the New York Home Journal from September 1854, until Willis' death, then became chief editor and sole proprietor. In America, Phillips became known as "the father of society news."

The Knickerbocker was devoted to the fine arts in particular with occasional news and editorials. Full length biographical sketches were also printed on such artists as Gilbert Stuart, Hiram Powers, Horatio Greenough, and Frederick Styles Agate. According to environmental historian, Roderick Nash, The Knickerbocker was one of the earliest literary vehicles for communication about the United States' "vanishing wilderness", including serialized articles by Thomas Cole and Francis Parkman Jr. In the early 1800s, the Reverend Edward Hitchcock came across a set of what appeared to him to be giant bird tracks. These later turned out to be reptile tracks, however they nonetheless inspired him to write a poem entitled "The Sandstone Bird" involving the reanimation of a great sandstone bird by a female mystic. Later published in The Knickerbocker by Hitchcock, under the pseudonym Poetaster, this is widely believed to have been the first ichnological poem.