American Mercury, The

American Mercury, The (1924–80), monthly magazine founded by H.L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan as a successor to their Smart Set, “to attempt a realistic presentation of the whole gaudy, gorgeous American scene,” with all phases of American culture and institutions treated in a spirit of boisterous skepticism. The subject matter included not only lusty critical commentaries, but also short stories, poems, plays, and reviews of the arts, in keeping with the full‐blooded editorial policy. After the first year Nathan ceased to be co‐editor, and in 1930 he silently disappeared from the magazine. The many noted contributors included Dreiser, O'Neill, Sherwood Anderson, Cabell, Hergesheimer, Sandburg, Van Vechten, Sinclair Lewis, and Edgar Lee Masters. Among several celebrated departments, “Americana” was devoted to clippings from newspapers, ironically reflecting the alleged stupidity of the American mass mind. In 1934 Mencken left the magazine, but his decade and the next were memorialized in The American Mercury Reader (1944). In 1946 it absorbed Common Sense, but it underwent more drastic changes of ownership and views until in 1952 it became a right‐wing journal with no relation to the original magazine except for name. In 1968 it began publication in Orange County, Cal., but ceased publication in 1980.