Description
Collector's Note – Why This Issue Matters
June 29, 1935 places this issue of The New Yorker in the middle of the most legislatively consequential summer of the entire Depression decade. The Social Security Act was moving through Congress, the National Labor Relations Act had just been passed by the Senate on May 16 and would be signed into law on July 5, and the Works Progress Administration was being organized — the Second New Deal was reshaping the relationship between the federal government and American social and economic life with a speed and scope that generated fierce debate and profound uncertainty. In New York, the late June atmosphere combined the city's characteristic summer energy with the political and economic pressures of an era still living with the Depression's consequences. For collectors building a serious documentary archive through original magazines from 1935, a late June issue captures the American cultural moment at one of the decade's most transformative legislative thresholds — days before the National Labor Relations Act was signed, weeks before Social Security became law.
The cover by Barbara Shermund makes this issue genuinely exceptional within the magazine's Depression-era visual archive, and gives it a significance that goes well beyond its historical date. Shermund was one of the earliest women cartoonists to publish regularly in The New Yorker, beginning her association with the magazine in the late 1920s and contributing covers and interior cartoons that were recognized for exactly the qualities the listing identifies — insightful, humorous portrayals of modern women that offered candid commentary on the societal expectations and everyday realities of women's lives in the 1920s and 1930s. Her work was ahead of its time in its frank, witty, and unsentimental representation of women as subjects with inner lives, social agency, and opinions about the world around them — a perspective that distinguished her from many of her contemporaries and that has made her an important figure in the history of American illustration and feminist cartooning. A Shermund cover from June 1935 is a primary artifact of that pioneering contribution, produced at the height of her association with the magazine by one of the few women whose work shaped the visual identity of The New Yorker in its formative decades. For collectors tracing the complete visual history of the publication through original New Yorker issues, Shermund covers are among the most historically significant and personally meaningful objects in the Depression-era archive.
The combination of Shermund's pioneering presence and the specific legislative moment of late June 1935 gives this issue a layered significance that is difficult to locate elsewhere in the magazine's mid-decade run. A woman cartoonist known for frank commentary on women's lives, producing cover art at the precise moment the New Deal's most ambitious social legislation was being enacted — including the Social Security Act, which would have direct and lasting implications for millions of American women — is a convergence that the historically attentive collector will find genuinely compelling.
About the Publication
Founded in February 1925 by Harold Ross, The New Yorker was by the summer of 1935 a fully established institution of American cultural life, ten years into its run and operating with the editorial confidence and literary ambition that would define its reputation for generations. Its readership was urban, educated, and expected the combination of wit, critical intelligence, and serious engagement with the world that Ross enforced with unusual editorial discipline. The magazine's format was mature and consistent: "Talk of the Town" commentary opened each issue, followed by reported features, fiction, poetry, and critical reviews spanning theater, books, art, and film, all interwoven with cartoons and spot illustrations that had developed by mid-decade into one of the most celebrated creative traditions in American periodical publishing. Covers were individually commissioned works of illustration, and Shermund's presence among the contributing artists was both uncommon and historically meaningful in a field dominated by male illustrators.
Key Highlights Inside
- Barbara Shermund cover illustration: The cover is the defining collectible and historically significant feature of this issue — original artwork by one of the earliest women cartoonists to publish regularly in The New Yorker, known for insightful and humorous portrayals of modern women that offered candid social commentary decades ahead of their general recognition as feminist cartooning.
- Days before the National Labor Relations Act signing: Published on June 29, 1935 — six days before Roosevelt signed the National Labor Relations Act on July 5 — this issue appeared at the threshold of one of the New Deal's most consequential pieces of labor legislation.
- Second New Deal legislative summer: The summer of 1935 was the most legislatively productive of Roosevelt's presidency, with Social Security, the NLRA, and the WPA all enacted within weeks — a transformation of American social and economic policy whose implications were still being absorbed as this issue circulated.
- Pioneer female cartoonist at peak career: Shermund's late-1920s through mid-1930s work for The New Yorker represents the most active and celebrated phase of her career, and a June 1935 cover is an artifact of that contribution at its fullest expression.
- Period cartoons and advertising: Issues from the mid-1930s are consistently valued by collectors and cultural historians for the cartoons, spot illustrations, and advertising that together provide a granular record of social life, gender dynamics, and everyday observation in Depression-era New York.
Note: Specific article titles, bylines, and interior content for this exact issue have not been independently confirmed beyond what appears in the listing. The highlights above reflect only what is verifiable from the cover credit, publication date, and the magazine's well-documented editorial format during this period.
Condition & Rarity
A surviving copy of a weekly newsstand magazine from June 1935 presenting in very good condition — with minor edge wear as the only noted imperfection — is a strong preservation result for a publication now ninety years old. The New Yorker was printed on acidic wood-pulp paper stock standard for weekly periodicals of the era, a material inherently prone to toning, brittleness, and structural degradation over time. Edge wear of the kind described is entirely consistent with honest age and careful storage rather than mishandling or neglect. When evaluating any surviving copy of this issue, the meaningful criteria are the integrity and color fidelity of Shermund's cover art, the completeness of all interior pages, the absence of subscription label adhesive residue or moisture damage, and the structural soundness of the spine. A copy meeting the standard described — visually strong at nine decades of age, with wear confined to the margins — represents the preservation grade that serious collectors of Depression-era periodicals, and particularly of material associated with early women cartoonists, actively seek.
Looking for More Issues Like This?
Barbara Shermund covers are among the most historically significant and personally meaningful objects in the Depression-era New Yorker collector market — the work of a pioneering woman cartoonist whose contribution to the magazine's identity deserves far more recognition than it typically receives — and this specific June 1935 date, at such a consequential legislative moment, makes it a particularly complete and rewarding find. If it is no longer available, the extensive original New Yorker collection at OriginalMagazines.com is one of the deepest archives of the magazine accessible to collectors anywhere, spanning many decades of its publishing history. For those drawn to the mid-Depression magazine at its most historically charged and creatively significant, the full 1935 magazine collection rewards careful and unhurried exploration — it is a year whose legislative ambition, cultural vitality, and historical momentum are present in every issue that has survived to the present day.