Mission & History

The mission of American Heritage remains similar to what its early editors set forth in 1949: “To develop a deeper understanding of the American heritage.”

Founding editor Bruce Catton wrote about the magazine's guiding principles: “We believe in good storytelling; that interesting writers can interpret history and restore it to the place it once occupied as the noblest branch of literature.”

Today, American Heritage is the oldest and most respected magazine on American history, its eagle emblem recognizable by millions of Americans as a sign of excellence and authority. The company proudly carries on its mission of telling the Nation’s story and connecting Americans to their rich historical and cultural past.

Although no longer issued as a print publication, digital issues of American Heritage are sent to 65,000 subscribers each issue, with millions of people including many students and researchers reading the magazine's archives online.

Check out these articles about the history of our magazine. 

From the start, American Heritage was unlike any other magazine in America, bringing the general public articles and stories about our shared heritage written by first-rate scholars.

AASLH which published five volumes of a saddle-stitched magazine but decided in 1954 to sell the magazine to three former Time, Inc. editors — James Parton, Oliver Jensen and Joseph J. Thorndike, Jr. — who were convinced that the American story if well told was one of great value and endless fascination. They applied the techniques of journalism to the discipline of history, and envisioned a new kind of magazine: an abundantly illustrated bimonthly, bound in hard covers with no advertising.

The first issue of the new series appeared in December 1954, edited by Bruce Catton, who had just won the Pulitzer Prize for A Stillness at Appomattox.

In a decade the magazine jumped to 300,000 subscribers. During this ten-year period, American Heritage created a book division, publishing hundreds of highly regarded illustrated histories and reference books, including The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. It soon became the standard reference it remains today. In 1969, American Heritage was acquired by McGraw Hill.

In the late 1970s private investor Samuel Reed bought the magazine from McGraw and changed the business model, reformatting the magazine from hard-bound to soft cover and offering advertisers an opportunity to appear in AH’s pages. A new editor, Byron Dobell, restored much of the magazine’s old vigor, and the magazine again thrived.