Life Magazine was the TV of my youth. Founded in 1936 (before even my time, but not my much), it published weekly until 1972 and for all that time, Life was where the pictures were - funny pictures, tragic pictures, dramatic pictures, silly pictures, Life had them all. Life photographers were the best and most famous in the world (and many of them still are).
Life covered moments great and small - from wars and explorations to gadgets and starlets. Nothing really happened until its picture turned up in Life. But it wasn't all pictures - I first read Michener's "Bridges at Toko-Ri" and Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" in Life.
The last house I lived in in Illinois was only a short walk from a public library and there they had a complete set of Life Magazines. I'd walk over there now and then and spend time paging through issues from the 40's and 50's and was astounded at how many I remembered. They were the iconic images of my life.
The weekly Life was followed by a monthly which published until 2000 and then folded again. In a third incarnation, it's been published as a weekend newspaper insert since 2004. Now, according to reports, it's folding again. For the last time. My TV, done in by TV.
But the good news is, Time Inc. is expected to put the entire collection of Life photographs - some 10 million images - online and make them available free. I'm blocking out a couple of years to browse.
Links: Huffington Post, Life
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