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overview
landmarks
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overview
This profile considers the Cowles family and Cowles media
group.
It covers -
Cowles
media was independent of the Spokane-based Cowles Publishing
Co (profiled here), controlled
by a separate Cowles dynasty.
introduction
Cowles Media Company was a Minneapolis-based newspaper,
magazine, book and information services company that dated
from 1935. It was acquired by McClatchy
in 1998 for US$1.4 billion.
Operating units at that time included the daily Star
Tribune in Minneapolis and St Paul, Cowles Enthusiast
Media (publishers of special interest consumer magazines
such as American History, Country Journal
and related products, subsequently acquired by Primedia),
Cowles Business Media (publisher of magazines such as
Catalog Age and Directory World, online
research products and conferences for the media/marketing
services industries) and Cowles Creative Publishing, a
publisher of series in the DIY and recreation sectors.
It had formerly encompassed television stations, Look
magazine (the main US competitor to Life), Flair
and Quick magazines, a controlling stake in Harpers
magazine and a range of newspapers in Florida and across
the northern US.
development
Founding father Gardner Cowles I, a small-town Iowa banker,
acquired the Des Moines morning Register & Leader
and went on to buy other mid-west newspapers in competition
with figures such as Oscar Stauffer
and Arthur Capper. He
achieved prominence as a Progressive and representative
of Iowa interests.
In 1935 the Cowles family bought the Minneapolis Daily
Star, going on to acquire the Journal and
Tribune in that city, along with other newspapers
and radio interests. In 1937 Gardner Cowles II - aka Mike
Cowles - launched Look magazine in competition
with Time's Life and other
photojournalism magazines.
His wife Fleur, briefly an appointee of Harry Truman,
served as as Associate Editor of Look and the
family's Quick magazine before founding Flair
- an upmarket glossy that folded in 1951 but attracts
ongoing attention as a model for the Newhouse's
Vanity Fair. Her interest in surrealism was reflected
in organisation of and participation in exhibitions, along
with authorship of a (to us overly respectful) biography
of Salvador Dali. Unkind observers sometimes compared
her with Clare Booth Luce, another magnate's wife with
aspirations to art and a liking for the spotlight.
Her husband, apart from expanding his newspaper interests,
had meanwhile extended into land development - notably
in Florida, echoing the combination of development and
promotion apparent in the activities of the Forbes
family.
Energy seems to have waned from the late 1960s, with parts
of the group being progressively sold off or shut down.
The New York Times acquired
the group's Family Circle and Look magazines,
regional newspapers and other interests for US$67 million
in 1971. The Des Moines Register and titles in
Independence, Indianola and Jackson were sold to Gannett
in 1985.
The Washington Post acquired 28%
of Cowles in that year. During the following decade Cowles
acquired a range of specialist magazines (such as Cable
World) and information services, before it was bought
by McClatchy in 1998 for US$1.4
billion.
studies
For a study of the group see A History of Cowles
Media Company (Creative Publishing 1998) by James
Alcott.
Gardner Cowles I features in Covering Iowa: The History
of the Des Moines Register and Tribune Company 1849-1985
(Ames: Iowa State Uni Press 2000) by William Friedricks
and Harvey Ingham & Gardner Cowles, Sr: Things
Don't Just Happen (Ames: Iowa State Uni Press 1977)
by George Mills.
His son Gardner 'Mike' Jr was responsible for Mike
Looks Back: The Memoirs of Gardner Cowles, Founder of
LOOK Magazine (New York: Scribners 1985).
The landmark Cowles First Amendment case is examined in
The Taming of the Press: Cohen v Cowles Media Company
(New York: Praeger 1999) by Elliot Rothenberg.
Involvement with Harpers is discussed in An American
Album: One Hundred & Fifty Years of Harper's Magazine
(Franklin Square Press 2000) edited by Lewis Lapham &
Ellen Rosenbush, Larry King's In Search of Willie
Morris: The Mercurial Life of a Legendary Writer and Editor
(New York: Public Affairs 2006) and Morris's memoir New
York Days (Boston: Little, Brown 1993).
 next
page (Cowles chronology)
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