Literary History
A leading literary magazine, The Atlantic published many significant works and authors. It was the first to publish pieces by the abolitionists Julia Ward Howe ("Battle Hymn of the Republic" on February 1, 1862), and William Parker's slave narrative, "The Freedman's Story" (in February and March 1866). It published Charles W. Eliot's "The New Education", a call for practical reform that led to his appointment to presidency of Harvard University in 1869. It published works by Charles Chesnutt before he collected them in The Conjure Woman. It published poetry and short stories, helping launch many national literary careers. Emily Dickinson, after reading an article in The Atlantic by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, asked him to become her mentor. In 2005, the magazine won a National Magazine Award for fiction.
The magazine published many of the works of Mark Twain, including one that was lost until 2001. Editors recognized major cultural changes and movements. The magazine published Martin Luther King, Jr.'s defense of civil disobedience in "Letter from Birmingham Jail" in August 1963.
The magazine has also published speculative articles that inspired the development of new technologies. The classic example is Vannevar Bush's July 1945 essay "As We May Think", which inspired Douglas Engelbart and later Ted Nelson to develop the modern workstation and hypertext technology.
In addition to its fiction and poetry, the magazine publishes writing on society and politics. "A three-part series by William Langewiesche in 2002 on the rebuilding of the World Trade Center generated headlines, as have articles by James Fallows on planning for the Iraq war and reconstruction."
As of 2012, its writers included James Fallows, Mark Bowden, Jeffrey Goldberg, Megan McArdle, Jeffrey Tayler, Robert D. Kaplan and Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Read more about this topic: The Atlantic
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