Texas Monthly Editorial Photography Collection

Texas Monthly magazine was founded in 1972 by its publisher, Michael R. Levy, a 26 year-old native Dallasite who was "convinced that my state was ready for a really first class magazine that will appeal directly to the sophisticated, cosmopolitan folks that Texans have become." (Texas Monthly, Feb. 1973). Levy brought aboard 27 year-old William Broyles, Jr. as editor. Broyles assembled an editorial staff that was short on journalistic experience but imbued with curiousity, intelligence, irreverence, and literary skills. Many of Texas Monthly's early staffers were friends of Broyles from Rice University, where the intellectual climate helped set the tone for the magazine. As Broyles later wrote, "If any one quality unites these farflung efforts, it is a boundless curiosity. Most of our stories began with one of us saying "I wonder..." (The Best of Texas Monthly: The First Five Years.)

Texas Monthly's first issue was published in February 1973, and it was not an immediate commercial success, selling only about 35,000 copies. But the magazine quickly gained recognition for offering a significant departure from the rest of the state's media. Texas Monthly contained intelligent and entertaining examinations of Texas life ranging from politics, culture, art, sports, personalities, lifestyles, the environment, fashion, crime, business, education, entertainment, and travel. Along the way, the magazine began to define how Texas was emerging as a contemporary urban state while still clinging to its rural mythic past.

From its beginnings, Texas Monthly developed a reputation as a "writer's magazine," and it helped develop new generations of writing talent while also offering a welcome forum for established voices. Texas Monthly hired many young writers as full-time staff members with benefits, creating a community of professional writers centered near the magazine's home base in Austin.

In 1974, after only one year of existence, the editorial staff's efforts were rewarded with a National Magazine Award (the industry equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize) for Specialized Journalism. Since then Texas Monthly has established a solid reputation for editorial excellence, winning eight National Magazine Awards and 38 nominations- a record surpassed by only The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's and Esquire.

Over the next several decades, Texas Monthly has evolved and changed under new editorships and owners, but it remains the "National Magazine of Texas," chronically life in the Lone Star State, exploring its politics and personalities, barbecue and business, true crime and tacos, honky-tonks and hiking.