I am holding in my hands a copy of Life magazine from March 26, 1925. Yes, you read that right, a copy of a magazine published 100 years ago.  The magazine feels, looks, and reads like many magazines published today.  A nice cover, good content, plenty of illustrations, and a promise for the future, “While there is Life There’s Hope.”  And hope is what I see and feel every time I pick up a copy of a magazine from a century or two ago.

Print is permanent.  A magazine, once printed, is permanent.  You can’t change a thing, not even a comma.  There is no backspace or delete button.  What you see is what you get: yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  You can own it and you can proudly say it is mine.  That sense of ownership satisfies the human need in all of us to own things, lots of things (Just look at your house or apartment and see how many things you have, even those you do not need).

Flipping through the pages of this issue of Life, I am transformed to a simpler, calmer world where,  I can “select colors and upholstery,” for my “custom Cadillac,” or enjoy my Wrigley’s chewing gum “after every meal.”

I am also reading the prize winner’s answer to the question, “Is Democracy a Success?”  H.W. Davis won the $50 prize for the following answer: “ Democracy is a rip-roaring success.  If you don’t believe so, say out loud that it isn’t – and run for your life.  Democracy pats the greatest number of people on the back and makes the most promises. Of course it seldom delivers. But what of that? We live and are made happy by promise, not performance.

And happiness is success, for all that anybody has been able to prove to the contrary. Ergo, democracy is a success.

There! The pup has his tail in his teeth.”

So, here you have it.  I am reading and flipping the pages of a magazine from 100 years ago, exactly like I read and flip the pages of a magazine from March 26, 2025.  I wonder if I can say the same thing about any of my digital devices? Heck, I can’t even use my camcorder from 20 years ago, yet I can look at my printed pictures from 50 years ago.

Long live print and long live permeance.  Print will be here long after I am gone, the same it was here long before I was born. 

One final note, there is nothing permanent about digital, even a PDF can be changed and altered. You can’t do that to a magazine. It is permanent.

Enough of that, I have some reading to do…the first issue of Art Lovers magazine from January 1925…To be continued.

PS:  If you want to journey through thousands of magazines from yesteryears, check The Samir Husni’s Magazine Collection at my Alma Mater The University of Missouri-Columbia here.