Editing Picture Post (section)

==History==
In January 1941 ''Picture Post'' published their "Plan for Britain". This included minimum wages throughout industry, full employment, child allowances, a national health service, the planned use of land and a complete overhaul of education. This document led to discussions about post-war Britain and was a populist forerunner of [[William Beveridge]]'s November 1942 Report.

Sales of ''Picture Post'' increased further during [[World War II]], and by December 1943, the magazine was selling 1,950,000 copies a week. By the end of 1949 circulation had declined to 1,422,000.

The founding editor, [[Stefan Lorant]] (who had also founded ''[[Lilliput (magazine)|Lilliput]]'' and had even earlier pioneered the picture-story in Germany in the 1920s), had been succeeded by (Sir) [[Tom Hopkinson]] in 1940. Lorant, who was Jewish, had been imprisoned by Hitler in the early 1930s and later wrote a best-selling book, ''I Was Hitler's Prisoner''. By 1940, he feared that he would be captured in a [[Operation Sealion|Nazi invasion of Britain]] and so fled to [[Massachusetts]], where he wrote important illustrated US histories and biographies.

During World War II, the art editor of the magazine, [[Edgar Ainsworth (artist)|Edgar Ainsworth]], served as a war correspondent and accompanied the [[United States Army Europe|American 7th Army]] on its advance across Europe in 1945.<ref name=SimFA>{{cite web |url=https://issuu.com/adamhw/docs/holdingline2015 |title=Holding the Line 2015, The Art of the War Years 1939–1945 |year=2015|access-date=5 November 2016|work=Sim Fine Arts}}</ref> He visited the [[Bergen-Belsen concentration camp]] three times after the British army liberated the complex in April 1945. Several of his sketches and drawings from the camp were published in a September 1945 article, ''Victim and Prisoner''. Ainsworth also commissioned the artist [[Mervyn Peake]] to visit France and Germany at the end of the war and reported from Bergen-Belsen.<ref name=Colegrave>{{cite web|author=Sarah Colegrave Fine Art|url=http://www.sarahcolegrave.co.uk/paintings/d/gordale-scar/41434|title=Edgar Ainsworth (1905–1975)|access-date=5 November 2016|work=Sarah Colegrave Fine Art|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171201044438/http://www.sarahcolegrave.co.uk/paintings/d/gordale-scar/41434|archive-date=1 December 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Hopkinson said that his photographers were thoroughbreds and that text could always be written after the event, but if his photographers did not come back with good pictures, he had nothing to work with. Years later, Hopkinson said that the greatest photos he ever received to lay out were [[Bert Hardy]]'s images from the [[Korean War]]'s [[Battle of Incheon]], for which [[James Cameron (journalist)|James Cameron]] wrote the article. The magazine's greatest photographers included Hardy, [[Kurt Hutton]], [[Felix H. Man]] (aka Hans Baumann), [[Francis Reiss]], [[Thurston Hopkins]], John Chillingworth, [[Grace Robertson]], and Leonard McCombe, who eventually joined ''Life'' magazine's staff. Staff writers included [[MacDonald Hastings]], Lorna Hay, [[Sydney Jacobson]], [[J. B. Priestley]], Lionel Birch, James Cameron, [[Fyfe Robertson]], [[Anne Scott-James]], [[Robert Kee]] and [[Bert Lloyd]]. Many freelancer writers contributed as well, including [[George Bernard Shaw]], [[Dorothy Parker]], and [[William Saroyan]].

On 17 June 1950, ''[[Leader Magazine|Leader]]'' magazine was incorporated in ''Picture Post''.<ref>{{cite news|title=Weekly Magazines to be Merged|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2507&dat=19500518&id=LkhAAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ZZEMAAAAIBAJ&pg=3269,1472053&hl=tr|access-date=26 November 2015|work=The Glasgow Herald|date=18 May 1950}}</ref> Editor Tom Hopkinson was often in conflict with (Sir) [[Edward G. Hulton]], the owner of ''Picture Post''. Hulton mainly supported the [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative Party]] and objected to Hopkinson's [[socialist]] views. The conflict led to Hopkinson's dismissal in 1950 following the publication of Cameron's article, with pictures by Hardy, about [[South Korea]]'s treatment of political prisoners in the Korean War.

By June 1952, circulation had fallen to 935,000. Sales continued to decline in the face of competition from television and a revolving door of new editors. By the time the magazine closed in July 1957, circulation was less than 600,000 copies a week.

''Picture Post'' was digitised as The Picture Post Historical Archive, 1938–1957 and consists of the complete, fully searchable facsimile archive of the ''Picture Post''. It was made available in 2011 to libraries and institutions.<ref name=gale/>