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|  | Home > About Us > News > Press Releases > Press Releases 2009 > A View of the Parade: H.L. Mencken and American Magazines August 27, 2009 “A View of the Parade: H. L. Mencken and American Magazines” Exhibit Opens Today Henry Louis Mencken, often called the “Sage of Baltimore,” had a long and distinguished career as a journalist with the Sunpapers. But throughout his lifetime in the newspaper industry, he also worked for magazines as a writer and editor. Indeed, Mencken’s ascendance on the national scene coincided with the increasing presence of magazines in American culture. The Sheridan Libraries’ new Mencken exhibit, opening today at the George Peabody Library in Mt. Vernon, explores the life of Mencken and the United States through magazines. Like newspapers, magazines report and analyze current events, provide entertainment, and offer a sense of community. But with eye-catching graphics and wide-ranging coverage, magazines also reveal the color and variety of American culture—the national parade. Magazines developed these defining traits during the first half of the twentieth century, a period of remarkable change in print technology and the publishing industry, as they filled with imagery, advertising, and debate. “Mencken loved to observe and satirize the foibles of the American scene, and magazines provided the perfect vehicle for his commentary,” says Gabrielle Dean, the Council on Library and Information Resources postdoctoral fellow in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Department at the Sheridan Libraries and the exhibit’s curator. “As his fame as a critical spectator grew, Mencken himself became a spectacle. Magazines made him one of the nation’s first modern celebrities.” “A View of the Parade” documents Mencken’s appearances in American magazines as both a witness to and participant in American life and comes from the George H. Thompson Collection of Henry Louis Mencken. This double-sided view of H. L. Mencken and American magazines is deeply indebted to Thompson’s foresight as a collector, allowing us to understand Mencken’s broader context and to glimpse the complex history of American magazine publishing in the twentieth century. The late George H. Thompson’s collection—acquired from his wife Betty and son Bradford—reflects Thompson’s “completist” philosophy, with nearly 5,000 items by or about Mencken. “We are extremely grateful to the Thompson family for helping make this exhibit possible” says Winston Tabb, Sheridan Dean of University Libraries and Museums. “This is a wonderful testament to Mr. Thompson’s passion for collecting and provides a fascinating tour of some of the defining moments of the early twentieth century as viewed through Mencken’s eyes.” The exhibition opens Thursday, August 27, and runs through November 30, at The Johns Hopkins University’s George Peabody Library Exhibition Gallery, 17 E. Mount Vernon Place, in Baltimore. The gallery is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.; and Sunday, 12 to 5 p.m. On September 12, Mencken Day, the Friends of the Johns Hopkins Libraries will host an opening reception at 4 p.m. Please RSVP to Stacie Spence at libraryfriends@jhu.edu or 410-516-7943 if you are able to attend.
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