| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 88.3

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 88.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Defining New Yorker Humor. By Judith Yaross Lee. (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2000. x, 427 pp. Cloth, $48.00, ISBN 1-57806-197-0. Paper, $20.00, ISBN 1-57806-198-9.)

Judith Yaross Lee's goal in Defining New Yorker Humor is to correct what she regards as widespread misconceptions of the New Yorker, particularly concerning Harold Ross, the magazine's founding editor. Lee says historians and others underappreciated Ross's success because numerous New Yorker writers have presented him as "an inept but lucky guy." She argues that Ross shaped the magazine's distinctive personality between 1925 and 1930 and sets out to recover this history. Lee suggests that the opening of the New Yorker archives allowed her better to get at the processes that shaped the magazine. 1

Lee's urge to correct mistaken impressions and the use of the archives allows her to show that, while the humor of the male contributors was often misogynist in tone, the New Yorker was by no means misogynist in character since it had numerous female editors and contributors. This fact, she stresses, is often lost to those who consult albums of New Yorker cartoons rather than the original issues. She also suggests that accusations of racism in New Yorker cartoons from this period misjudge the magazine's liberal tone and ironic sensibility. . . .

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