Born in the Depression.

Esquire: The Quarterly for Men made its debut on 15 October 1933, near the trough of the Great Depression. The idea of a new men's fashion magazine for the public came from C. F. Peters, a Scandinavian fashion artist, who told three men associated with the trade paper Apparel Arts that a magazine that could be sold or given away to clothing customers would be successful. The three men—David A. Smart, William H. Weintraub, and Arnold Gingrich—worked for nearly a year before coming up with a design for the new magazine, which would combine fashion illustrations and advice with cultural writing.

Quick Growth.

The 5,000 copies of the first quarterly issue reserved for newsstand sales sold out within five hours. The Esquire staff scrambled to recall 95,000 of the 100,000 copies presold to menswear stores so they could be shipped to newsstands. The success of the magazine...