American Heritage: RIP 1954 - 2007

American Heritage is history.

There have been many magazines that have come and gone, but why this one deserved a front page obit in today's New York Times' culture page is a mystery to the Reaper. Maybe the stuffier, the sexier for the Grey Lady. But we did learn in detail how the editor likes to dress.

Despite an all time high circulation of 350,000, the advertising was scant, and you can't always make it on circulation alone (as many other magazines have learned recently).

This story reminds me of a magazine called Memories -- it was the pet project of long-time magazine editor Carey Winfrey. It received a lot of buzz when it launched, there were even TV specials based on the content, but it never caught on and died.

Unfortunately, you can not build a magazine business on nostalgia and memories anymore, since you can even find Lenny Bruce routines on YouTube.  So the Reaper, with great sentimentality, is taking American Heritage away where it can reminisce with the other titles about the good old days when advertisers really valued magazines as marketing vehicles and the newsstand meant something.