Picture Post

Picture Post, weekly British photojournalistic magazine first published in 1938. The magazine was the first of its kind and was immediately successful, selling a total of 1.35 million copies in its first four months of publication. The magazine was conceived by Stefan Lorant, a Hungarian-Jewish film-maker and photojournalist, with the help of editor (of Lilliput) Tom Hopkinson (later knighted). The publisher was Edward G. Hulton (also later knighted), the son of an English newspaper proprietor, and the editor was Lorant until he relocated to the United States in 1940 and Hopkinson took over. The latter took on a group of skilled writers and photographers that included Bert Hardy and Kurt Hutton.

Some of Hopkinson’s political views were to come out in his use of Picture Post in a campaign against the persecution of the Jews. He also used Picture Post to publish Plan for Britain (1941), in which he proposed child allowances, a national health service, minimum wages, and educational changes. This was a precursor to the Beveridge Report of 1942, which helped lead to the creation of the British welfare state. However, conflict existed between Hopkinson, a socialist, and the proprietor Hulton, a conservative.

Sales of Picture Post increased during and after World War II, reaching 1.42 million per week in 1949. In 1950 three controversial (at that time) photojournalistic stories (by Bert Hardy) and an article (by journalist James Cameron) on the Korean War were published in the magazine against Hulton’s wishes. Accused by Hulton of spreading communist propaganda, Hopkinson left his post. Associate editor Ted Castle took over as editor but some journalists loyal to Hopkinson refused to continue working and sales began to decline until, in 1957, circulation was down to fewer than 600,000 copies per week. Despite this, Picture Post is fondly remembered as one of the most influential and renowned photojournalistic magazines of 20th century Britain.