Politics (journal) - Publishing and Circulation

Publishing and Circulation

As is proverbial among small-circulation journals of intellectual opinion, the finances of Politics ran at a deficit, much of it covered by Macdonald's first wife the former Nancy Rodman (m. 1934), sister of the poet, editor and author Selden Rodman, and the beneficiary on her mother's side of an ample trust fund; also proverbially among such magazines, circulation tended toward the 5,000 (c. 60 percent subscription, 40 percent news-stand) mark. Macdonald changed its original monthly frequency to quarterly early in its fourth year of six, and acknowledged in an aside to subscribers his awareness of its chronic scheduling delays in a rueful aside in the issue for (in the best of all intended worlds) Summer 1948:

Note

For reasons not unconnected with the postal regulations governing second-class matter, the present issue, which appears early in November, is officially styled the Summer issue. The Editor extends his customary regrets, apologies and condolences to the readers.

Nancy's humanitarian and philanthropic background played a key role in an ongoing project of the magazine after the war, that of "Packages Abroad", by which regular appeals to readers, channeled directly or through such standard relief sgencies as CARE, enabled the donation of food, clothing, shoes and coal for heating to thousands of individuals and families across war-ravaged Europe deprived of them.