Others (magazine)

Others (magazine)
Title	Others
Editor	Alfred Kreymborg
Frequency	Quarterly
Firstdate	1915
Finaldate	1919
Country	United States
Based	New York City
Language	English

Others (magazine)

Others was an American modernist literary magazine founded in 1915 in New York City that promoted experimental poetry and avant‑garde art. The publication intersected with contemporaneous movements and figures from Harlem Renaissance to Dada, engaging with writers and artists associated with T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Marcel Duchamp, Gertrude Stein, and Alfred Stieglitz. Edited by Alfred Kreymborg with contributions from a wide network of poets, painters, and critics, the magazine published work that challenged Victorian and Georgian formalism while conversing with international modernism embodied by James Joyce, H. D. (Hilda Doolittle), Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, and Carl Sandburg.

History

Founded in 1915 by poets and editors including Alfred Kreymborg, Walter Conrad Arensberg, and Skipwith Cannell, the magazine emerged during a period shaped by events and institutions such as World War I, the Armistice of 11 November 1918, and the cultural ferment around Greenwich Village, MacDowell Colony, and the Poetry Bookshop. Early issues appeared as part of a broader Anglophone and European avant‑garde conversation that included publications like The Little Review, Blast, and Der Sturm. Financial strains, shifting editorial alliances, and controversies over free expression—echoing disputes surrounding The Little Review and obscenity trials like the one for Ulysses—contributed to its intermittent publication schedule and eventual cessation in 1919. During its run Others hosted debates connected to manifestos and gatherings similar in spirit to the Futurist Manifesto and salons around Stein and Alfred Stieglitz.

Editorial profile and contributors

The editorial profile prioritized experimental and imagist work, driven by editors such as Kreymborg, who corresponded with leading figures across networks including Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell, Williams, Pound, Marianne Moore, H.D., E. E. Cummings, Carl Sandburg, Max Weber (painter), William Butler Yeats, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, Ralph Waldo Emerson (as antecedent), and Walt Whitman (influence). Contributors represented diverse affiliations: some were associated with Princeton University, Columbia University, and the New School for Social Research; others connected to artistic milieus around 291 (gallery), Society of Independent Artists, and the National Academy of Design. The magazine featured poetry, essays, and visual art by participants who also published in journals like Poetry (magazine), The Egoist, and S4N. Editorial correspondence reveals links to patrons and collectors such as John Quinn and critics like Harriet Monroe and Carl Van Vechten.

Content and themes

Others published work exploring free verse and associative form, engaging themes resonant with practitioners and events including Imagism, Vorticism, Dada, and the prose experiments associated with James Joyce and Gertrude Stein. Frequent thematic concerns included urban life and industrial modernity as exemplified by writers who wrote on New York City, Broadway, and the rise of mass culture linked to venues like Times Square and institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The magazine also gave voice to African American and diasporic writers tied to the Harlem Renaissance—including Claude McKay and Jean Toomer—while publishing experimental pieces by women modernists such as Marianne Moore, H. D., and Amy Lowell. Essays and polemics engaged contemporary art debates involving Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and critics associated with The Dial and The Nation.

Design and publication format

Visually, the periodical reflected avant‑garde aesthetics found in contemporary small presses and galleries like 291 (gallery), showing clean typography and occasional reproductions of work by artists linked to Alfred Stieglitz, John Marin, Marsden Hartley, and Arthur Dove. Issues were typically saddle‑stitched or sewn, printed in limited runs that circulated through bookstores and reading rooms including Little Galleries of the Photo‑Secession and subscriptions distributed in cities such as New York City, Chicago, and Boston. The layout emphasized short poems, prose fragments, and small plates of visual art in an economy similar to that of Poetry (magazine) and The Little Review, reflecting the material constraints and experimental ethos of little magazines tied to small presses and cooperative distributions like those of Contact (magazine).

Reception and influence

Contemporaneous reception ranged from enthusiastic endorsement by modernist advocates such as Ezra Pound and Alfred Stieglitz to criticism from traditionalists connected to The Nation and mainstream newspapers like The New York Times. The magazine influenced younger poets who later became central figures—William Carlos Williams, E. E. Cummings, Marianne Moore, and Carl Sandburg—and contributed to debates that shaped anthologies and academic discussions at institutions including Harvard University, Columbia University, and Princeton University. Its role in validating free verse and experimental typography affected later little magazines and movements tied to The New Yorker's literary evolution and postwar journals such as Poetry (Chicago) derivatives and the small press revival of the 1920s and 1930s.

Legacy and archives

Although short‑lived, the magazine's legacy persists through archival collections held by repositories like the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress, and university archives at Columbia University, Harvard University, and the University of California, Berkeley. Scholarly attention in periodicals and monographs connects the magazine to studies of Modernism, the Harlem Renaissance, and the transatlantic avant‑garde; researchers consult correspondence involving Alfred Kreymborg, Ezra Pound, John Quinn, and collectors linked to Alfred Stieglitz and Walter Arensberg. Digitized scans and microfilm circulations in special collections support continued study of the magazine's contributions to American literature and visual culture in the early twentieth century.

Category:Literary magazines published in the United States Category:Modernism