Esquire, American monthly magazine, founded in 1933 by Arnold Gingrich. It began production as an oversized magazine for men that featured a slick, sophisticated style and drawings of scantily clad young women. It later abandoned its titillating role but continued to cultivate the image of affluence and refined taste.
Esquire’s early notoriety became the subject of a celebrated court case. In 1943 Frank C. Walker, the U.S. postmaster general, attempted to withdraw the magazine’s second-class mailing privileges (an economic rate generally considered essential to a magazine’s survival) on the grounds that Esquire was “not devoted to useful information” worthy of the mail subsidy. Gingrich and his associates protested, enlisting noted writers in their defense; he brought suit against Walker and in 1946 won his case in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Esquire was a pioneer in the use of unconventional topics and feature stories. As it began to publish the work of Thomas Wolfe, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, Truman Capote, and Norman Mailer, the magazine’s risqué image and its once racy air gradually receded. It provided an outlet for new writers of fiction and nonfiction, and its topical features, satiric humour, and excellent book, cinema, and music reviews filled a void between literary and opinion periodicals in the American market. Although the magazine continued to emphasize clothing and advertising directed to men, Esquire evolved into more of a general-audience publication.