Shaw, Joseph T. 1874-1952

SHAW, JOSEPH T. 1874-1952

Editor of black mask, 1926-1936

Influential Editor

Joseph T. Shaw made Black Mask one of the most respected pulp magazines of the 1920s and 1930s. By publishing the early work of such note-worthy writers as Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Erie Stanley Gardner, the magazine helped to define a whole style, commonly known as hard-boiled detective fiction.

Early Career

Born in 1874 in Gorham, Maine, Shaw edited the campus newspaper at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. Graduating in 1895, he was briefly employed at the New York Globe and worked for a wool company. He served in World War I, earning the rank of captain and the nickname "Cap." He was also a champion fencer, and when he later lived in New York he was licensed to carry a sword cane. Shaw remained in Europe for five years after the war, distributing food for the American Relief Administration. When he returned to the United States, he did some freelance editing and writing for popular magazines such as Field and Stream and the Saturday Evening Post. From the editor of Field and Stream he learned in 1926 that Black Mask needed a new editor; he got the job.

Black Mask

Founded in 1920 by H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan, both of whom distanced themselves from the magazine, Black Mask was a successful monthly pulp periodical specializing in detective fiction, mysteries, and adventure stories. Though Shaw knew nothing about the magazine when he applied for the position, he threw himself into making it the best of its kind and increasing circulation. Dashiell Hammett was among the most popular writers for Black Mask before Shaw took over the editorship of the magazine, Hammett had stopped submitting stories when he could not get a pay increase for his work. Shaw convinced Hammett to return to the magazine and then sought other writers of a similar caliber. Before long there was talk of a a Black Mask School" of detective fiction featuring tough, streetwise protagonists in grittily realistic urban American settings, a stark contrast to the genteel British detective tradition. The Black Mask approach proved popular: circulation soared, reaching a high of 103,000.

Tireless Advocate

He set his magazine above other pulps of the time, referring to it instead as a "rough-paper book." While most pulp writers wrere treated as hacks and expected to crank out stories rapidly for the many magazines that were published in the 1920s and 1930s, Shaw treated his writers like craftsmen. Black Mask was one of the best-paying pulps of the period and one of the most difficult in which to publish. Shaw promoted the writers whose stories he accepted both in the editorials and in his efforts to secure book contracts for some of them; he also helped to get some of their works adapted for the movies, Hammett flourished in this environment, serializing his first three novels in Black Mask. He dedicated his first novel, Red Harvest (1929), to Shaw. After Hammett stopped writing for the magazine in 1930, writers such as Raymond Chandler, George Harmon Coxe, Paul Cain, Norbert Davis, W. T. Ballard, and Horace McCry helped to ensure the continuing popularity of Black Mask.

The End of an Era

The Depression cut into Black Mask sales, and during a salary dispute with its publishers Shaw was relieved of his duties in 1936, sparking an exodus of several of his faithful writers from the magazine. Black Mask continued until 1951, By this time Shaw had become a literary agent, a job he held for ten years until his death in 1952.

Sources:

Ron Goulart, The Dime Detectives (New York: Mysterious Press, 1988);

Goulart, The Hardboiled Dicks (New York: Pocket Books, 1967);

William. F. Nolan, ed., The Black Mask Boys (New York: Morrow, 1985);

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Lee Server, Danger Is My Business: An Illustrated History of the Fabulous Pulp Magazines (San Francisco: Chronicle, 1993).