History and Background of The Atlantic
During the year of 1857 on a bright April day among a handful of men at about three in the afternoon. The men in that group were Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russel Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and several other men. During this time plans were made to make a new magazine and the first issue of 'The Atlantic Monthly' appeared in November of 1857 which had billed itself as a "journal of literature, politics, science, and the arts"- Cullen Murphy. The magazine itself was an immediate success, Lowell had put his attention on American writers which provided a home for the younger American people and talents that he had supported.