A character in my novel-in-progress collects old issues of National Geographic. When I was growing up in the 1950s, the iconic yellow-and-oak-leaf-bordered magazine took pride of place alongside the World Book Encyclopedia and Reader’s Digest Condensed Books in the Bronx apartment of our aspirational working class family. The magazine began in 1888 as a scholarly journal sent to 165 members of the National Geographic Society. In 1905, under the direction of Society President Alexander Graham Bell, it shifted to what he called “dynamical pictures.” The Board of Managers censured Bell for making the magazine “unscientific” but its popularity took off. The border was introduced in 1910 as an early attempt at branding. Color photos appeared in the 1930s. Today National Geographic has 40 million subscribers.
