eprintid: 10166041 rev_number: 6 eprint_status: archive userid: 699 dir: disk0/10/16/60/41 datestamp: 2023-03-07 14:05:07 lastmod: 2023-03-07 14:05:07 status_changed: 2023-03-07 14:05:07 type: article metadata_visibility: show sword_depositor: 699 creators_name: West, E James title: Johnson Publishing Company and the Search for a White Audience ispublished: pub divisions: UCL divisions: B03 divisions: C01 divisions: K22 note: � 2022 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercialNoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. abstract: Johnson Publishing Company, the publisher of Negro Digest and Ebony, made efforts to expand its white audience during the 1940s and early 1950s. Johnson Publishing aggressively sought “to sell white readers the idea that a Negro magazine is worth buying,” through the regular publication of letters from “white” readers, consistent references to its influence among whites, fundraising and subscription drives to circulate its magazines among white readers and within white institutions, advertising campaigns in major national publications, and other projects and editorial content. This study argues that these efforts can be situated within both a longer history of white readership of Black periodicals and are connected to a broader turn toward Black literature by white Americans during—and immediately following—World War II. In doing so, Johnson was able to position his publications as both recognizably Black periodicals and the “interracial magazine[s] that America needs.” date: 2022-07-19 date_type: published publisher: Informa UK Limited official_url: https://doi.org/10.1080/08821127.2022.2098206 oa_status: green full_text_type: pub language: eng primo: open primo_central: open_green verified: verified_manual elements_id: 2008904 doi: 10.1080/08821127.2022.2098206 lyricists_name: West, Edmund lyricists_id: EJWES56 actors_name: West, Edmund actors_id: EJWES56 actors_role: owner full_text_status: public publication: American Journalism volume: 39 number: 3 pagerange: 293-314 issn: 0882-1127 citation: West, E James; (2022) Johnson Publishing Company and the Search for a White Audience. American Journalism , 39 (3) pp. 293-314. 10.1080/08821127.2022.2098206 <https://doi.org/10.1080/08821127.2022.2098206>. Green open access document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10166041/1/Johnson%20Publishing%20Company%20and%20the%20Search%20for%20a%20White%20Audience.pdf