This is a bit misleading. The current "Life magazine" is a freebie newspaper extra and it is just a few pages. It is a far, far, cry from the classic Life magazine of the past. Has a cute picture puzzle.
The quality of their picture library is not exaggerated, it is absolutely superb. Their photographers were the best of the craft. However, because of limits of cameras and film in that day, most pictures were carefully posed. What the photographer chose to pose and what the editors chose to print could seriously affect the reality of the original subject matter. And of course not all pictures could be a dramatic image against a rich sky; some were almost plain "ID card" pictures.
The head of Time-Life publishing was Henry Luce. I give him much credit for bringing Time, Life, and Fortune magazines out. However, Luce held rather strong opinions and some may have filtered through his publications. Plus, I think he was a bit of an arrogant tyrant.
As I understand it, Luce was a member of the "China Lobby", a group of prominent US citizens who urged very strong ties and support for China in the 1930s and 1940s. The problem was that the Chinese govt under Chiang Kai Shek was not very good nor popular in China. The US put a lot of resources into proping up his govt during WW II and afterwards and didn't get much back for it. Because of poor internal support, it was relatively easy for Mao and the Communists to overthrow Chiang and take over. The China Lobby was furious that this happened and blamed the Democrats in power (the Truman Adm and Democrats in congress). But there was nothing the US could've done to stop the takeover, China was a real mess.
Sadly, IMHO, this set a bad precedent. The call "who lost China?" made subsequent politicians fearful of another such debacle and helped pave the way for the US disaster in Vietnam.
There is always reminising about Life magazine and how "great" it was. It was a good and interesting magazine. But it was not totally highbrow either. While it of course included serious news features each week, it also always included photos of undignifed circus or oddball people and places, fashion, considerable entertainment news, and attractive young women*. Much of what is in today's People magazine would've been in Life years ago.
(Into the 1970s serious in-house corporate newsletters often had a pretty young secretary on the cover.)
At times like this there is often handwringing how no one reads anymore. But that's only half true. Sure, back then (1940s, 1950s) people did read a lot more. But if you look closely at photos of newstands of that era, you'll see that serious publications are in a corner, while the bulk of the newstand has low-class tabloid "pulp" publications. Comic books, cheap Westerns, detective stories with plenty of gore, Hollywood gossip, etc., filled the bulk of yesterday's newstand. Publishing companies mass produced this stuff. The equivalent today is the numerous tabloid and gossip TV shows, both broadcast and cable. Indeed, even serious broadside newspapers back then often covered crime and scandal in grisly detail.
Yes. I forgot who published LOOK, it was basically a copy of Life. It had top notch photographers, too.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There is a sort of corny joke I will share with you: A rather noted Chinese spokesperson/diplomat by the name of Singmon Ree was employed for a long time -- many years -- by the Time, Inc. conglomerate as a writer/columnist, specifically for Life Magazine. This goes back to when Time, Inc. had its twin towers in New York City. Singmon was out walking around one day, when his presence was needed by Mr. Luce, who sent several people from his staff out to look for him. Luce became angrier and angrier not being able to find him, but eventually they did and the first words from the mouth of the staff person who found him was "Ahh ... Mister Ree of Life at last I found you!" PAT]