Background:

These original Fortune magazine covers are from 1932 - the third year of publication for the magazine.

Henry Luce, publisher of Fortune, said he wanted "the new magazine to be as beautiful a magazine as exists in the United States.   If possible, the undisputed most beautiful".  To that end  leading artists of the day contributed to the design of the covers.  Featured on this page are covers by T. M. Cleland, who designed the cover for the first issue of Fortune published in February 1930 (as well as the overall graphics design for the magazine), and Constantin Alajalov who was a regular contributor of covers for the New Yorker Magazine.

The covers are notable both for the quality of the graphics, and their commentary on business, social and political issues of the day.

Each Fortune cover is provided with a copy of the table of contents from the issue.