“To see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events; to watch the faces of the poor and the gestures of the proud; to see strange things — machines, armies, multitudes, shadows in the jungle and on the moon; to see man’s work — his paintings, towers and discoveries; to see things thousands of miles away, things hidden behind walls and within rooms, things dangerous to come to; the women that men love and many children; to see and to take pleasure in seeing; to see and be amazed; to see and be instructed.”
This was Henry Luce’s prospectus for LIFE in 1936, and it is thrilling. Reading it today, you’d never guess the country remained under the shadow of the Great Depression or that World War II was three years away.
At a moment when everything was coming apart, Luce expressed an astonishing degree of optimism about putting Americans on the same page, harnessing the awesome power of pictures to build a place for people to see themselves and each other, as well as the vast world beyond, for the first time.
Luce was a visionary. The publishing company he founded gave us Time, Fortune, Sports Illustrated, and People. But nothing connected quite like LIFE. At its peak, up to 30 million pairs of eyes were on every issue. LIFE took readers to war zones and outer space, as well as into bedrooms and backyards. It showed, frame by frame, the assassination of John F. Kennedy. It showed the development of a human fetus in the womb. It was television before television swallowed the culture. Outside of Walter Cronkite, Dolly Parton, and the Super Bowl, no person or institution did more to bring Americans together in the 20th century than LIFE. The magazine felt like a gathering place.
Now, with this issue, LIFE is reborn for the 21st century, embracing those principles from 1936. In fractured times, LIFE once again seeks to provide common ground, connectivity, and the belief that we all have a shared stake in the future.
New technology was at the core of Luce’s vision. The Leica camera, which debuted commercially in Germany in 1925, combined portability with high quality and ushered in a novel concept, the candid photograph. Pictures taken on the fly without people knowing it, capturing life as it happened. Modern photojournalism was born. And LIFE was at the forefront.
We are now many technological iterations beyond the Leica, living through a social media era overflowing with “storytelling.” The faster we scroll, the less we see. So our first move with LIFE is to slow it down, with this big print edition you hold in your hands. Here, everybody sees the same pictures, all of them focused, intentional, purposeful — a showcase for the best photographers in the world, as well as a home for serious journalism and discerning cultural coverage.
The theme of our first issue is “Where Are We Now?,” a window into an America that is searching for meaning: scientists and artists, entrepreneurs and athletes, children and octogenarians, coal miners and dronemakers. There are some famous people in the mix; most are not. See how much that difference matters. Our fascination comes from locating the ordinary in the extraordinary, and the extraordinary in the ordinary.
The first issue is just the beginning. We hope our stories fire up your curiosity, inspire you, and help bring you closer to people whose lives can seem far from your own. There is another quote from Luce that we love almost as much as his grand pronouncement. “Today I may not be in a good mood nor feel the need to read the finest article about the Prime Minister,” he said. “But I will stop to watch him take off his shoe.”
THE EDITORS
