Social Welfare and Visual Politics
The Story of Survey Graphic
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Social Welfare and Visual Politics: The Story of Survey Graphic
Cara Finnegan, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The Paul Kellogg Era: Social Reform in The Survey and Survey Graphic

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Paul Kellogg

6. In 1902 two brothers from Michigan, Paul and Arthur Kellogg, joined the staff of Charities just as the focus of the journal was beginning to shift with the times. The Kellogg brothers would within a few years become editor and business manager of the journal, Arthur staying until his death in 1934 and Paul lasting until the journal finally folded in 1952.[ 10] Throughout its existence in its various forms, the journal would be strongly influenced by the Kellogg brothers, particularly the unabashedly progressive Paul Kellogg, whose editorial positions remained remarkably consistent throughout the years. In 1907 Paul Kellogg, who was about to replace Edward T. Devine as editor of Charities and the Commons, was asked to conduct a broad survey of social conditions in the industrial city of Pittsburgh. Kellogg accepted the offer to direct the "Pittsburgh Survey" and assembled a group of progressive-minded investigators to assist him in the vast project. For more than a year and a half, Kellogg and his investigators studied nearly every aspect of life in Pittsburgh, including industrial accidents, industrial employment among women, labor issues in the steel industry, family life, schooling, health and recreation. They amassed a huge amount of information and published reports in three special issues of Charities and the Commons in the spring of 1909. The completed Pittsburgh Survey was eventually published by the Russell Sage Foundation as six full volumes of research, and the undertaking became the model for a new kind of social research based upon "modern" methods of information-gathering, investigation and analysis.

7. Upon the successful completion of the Pittsburgh Survey, Kellogg decided it was time to change the name of the journal to something that more closely reflected its current orientation. While the idea of "charity" no longer embodied the journal's interests, "survey" clearly did. Kellogg and his staff decided to change the name of the journal to The Survey in homage to the new kind of social analysis first undertaken in Pittsburgh. In 1912 the journal became fully independent of the charities organizations that had spawned it when the Kellogg brothers created a corporation called "Survey Associates." Any subscriber who paid ten dollars or more could become a member of the Survey Associates and would be entitled to vote for members of the Board of Directors. Some of the Associates, such as Jane Addams (also a member of the Board of Directors) and Lillian Wald, would from time to time contribute articles to the journal. On the whole, the Associates were conceived as a group of expert specialists that could be consulted for advice on issues of social significance.

8. During the teens and early twenties The Survey reflected the increasing professionalization of social work while at the same time it expanded its coverage to include broader discussions of social issues. In the mid-teens the journal devoted significant space to industrial topics such as wage and hour issues, accidents and occupational hazards, exploitation of child labor, and labor legislation.[ 11] In addition to its emphasis on industry, The Survey covered related subjects such as tenement living, discrimination against immigrants and black Americans, social insurance, woman suffrage, conditions in prisons, and even birth control.[ 12] On the whole, during the teens The Survey was still a professional social work journal, but one with a long lens. Its analysis of issues important to social workers in the field was always supplemented by a recognition that specialists needed to take into account a massive range of social factors influencing their clients. In 1915, editor Paul Kellogg explained that The Survey's main job was to serve "as an investigator and interpreter of the objective conditions of life and labor and as a chronicler of undertakings to improve them." [ 13]

9. The Survey continued along this path until the early twenties, when interest in progressive reform began to wane. During these years, the field of social work had continued to evolve as well, becoming increasingly professional in focus.[ 14] Partly to broaden the scope of his readership at a time when the field of social work was becoming more specialized, Paul Kellogg created Survey Graphic, a companion journal to The Survey. For years Kellogg had wanted to create a journal that would be aimed less at professional social workers and more generally at socially conscious members of the public. Kellogg wanted Survey Graphic to have some similarity to other journals of the time, such as the New Republic and The Nation, which incorporated analysis of art, literature and the budding field of psychology into discussions of public issues. But Kellogg also believed that his new journal should be fundamentally different in orientation. While these journals represented themselves as journals of "opinion," Kellogg wanted his new publication to represent itself as a journal of "social fact." He did not want to tell people what they should think, but to "provoke citizens everywhere into an awareness of new programs for social reform," to get citizens to see for themselves the necessity for particular social changes.[ 15]

10. The title Survey Graphic would not only distinguish the new journal from The Survey, but it would also highlight the new magazine's interest in the graphic depiction of social facts. Survey Graphic would over time treat many of the same issues covered by The Survey, but with a different, more popularized approach. Chief among the goals of Survey Graphic was to communicate information visually through the use of charts, graphs, illustrations, cartoons and photographs. Paul Kellogg hoped to "engage the attention of a wide audience by use of graphic and literary arts in partnership with the social sciences, to catch the eye and heart as well as the intellect." [ 16]

11. Survey Graphic debuted in the fall of 1921 as a companion to the more professionally oriented Survey. The two periodicals were published on a staggered schedule, with the Graphic published on the first of each month and The Survey, now known as Survey Midmonthly, published at the middle of the month. People who already received the Midmonthly were expected to subscribe to both journals, while members of the general public could choose to subscribe only to the Graphic. Those who received the first edition of the new journal were greeted by a splashy blue cover, featuring a giant sailing ship as its logo. Editor Paul Kellogg abused the ship metaphor in his remarks welcoming readers to the new magazine:

    Survey Graphic bids you to a voyage of discovery. The magazine is founded in the belief that the drama of human living may be as thrilling as the tale of a battle; that the destiny of a million new citizens, the struggle for public health, the aspirations of workaday men and women are as colorful as a trip to the Fortunate Isles. . . . Survey Graphic will reach into the corners of the world — America and all the Seven Seas — to wherever the tides of a generous progress are astir. . . . Its cargo will be stuff of creative experience, observation and invention.[ 17]

12. Throughout the twenties and into the thirties Survey Graphic reproduced the progressive orientation of The Survey, but did so in a more publicly accessible fashion. Kellogg's commitment to the discussion of all types of public issues becomes clear when one considers the range of subjects the journal treated during the twenties. Viewed with the hindsight of history, Survey Graphic in the twenties produced analyses of social and political issues that were years ahead of their time. For example, in a decade when few expressed interest in the problems of farmers, Survey Graphic began 1922 with a curiously foresighted special issue entitled, "The Hole the Farmers are In: How They Can Get Out." [ 18] Survey Graphic treated other subjects with foresight as well, producing special issues on heart disease (1924), the cultural contributions of the Harlem Renaissance (1925), "Woman's Place" (1926), "Family Life in America" (1927), the necessity for government intervention in the power industry (1927), fascism (1927) and, ominously, a 1928 warning about the potentially disastrous effects of growing mass unemployment.

    
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