Editing The Atlantic (section)

==Founding==
===19th century===
[[File:James Russell Lowell - 1855.jpg|thumb|[[James Russell Lowell]], the first editor of ''The Atlantic'']]
In the autumn of 1857, [[Moses Dresser Phillips]], a publisher from [[Boston]], created ''The Atlantic Monthly''. The plan for the magazine was launched at a dinner party, which was described in a letter by Phillips:

{{blockquote|I must tell you about a little dinner-party I gave about two weeks ago. It would be proper, perhaps, to state the origin of it was a desire to confer with my literary friends on a somewhat extensive literary project, the particulars of which I shall reserve till you come. But to the Party: My invitations included only [[Ralph Waldo Emerson|R. W. Emerson]], [[Henry Wadsworth Longfellow|H. W. Longfellow]], [[James Russell Lowell|J. R. Lowell]], [[John Lothrop Motley|Mr. Motley]] (the 'Dutch Republic' man), [[Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.|O. W. Holmes]], [[James Elliot Cabot|Mr. Cabot]], and [[Francis H. Underwood|Mr. Underwood]], our literary man. Imagine your uncle as the head of such a table, with such guests. The above named were the only ones invited, and they were all present. We sat down at three P.M., and rose at eight. The time occupied was longer by about four hours and thirty minutes than I am in the habit of consuming in that kind of occupation, but it was the richest time intellectually by all odds that I have ever had. Leaving myself and 'literary man' out of the group, I think you will agree with me that it would be difficult to duplicate that number of such conceded scholarship in the whole country besides... Each one is known alike on both sides of the Atlantic, and is read beyond the limits of the English language.<ref name="Hale 1898">{{cite book |last1=Hale |first1=Edward Everett |author1-link=Edward Everett Hale |title=James Russell Lowell and His Friends |date=1899 |oclc=5923947 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Company |location=Boston |pages=157–158 |url=https://archive.org/details/lowellandfriends00halerich/page/154/mode/1up?ref=ol&view=theater |via=Open Library}}</ref>}}

At that dinner he announced his idea for the magazine:

{{blockquote|Mr. Cabot is much wiser than I am. Dr. Holmes can write funnier verses than I can. Mr. Motley can write history better than I. Mr. Emerson is a philosopher and I am not. Mr. Lowell knows more of the old poets than I. But none of you knows the American people as well as I do.<ref name="Hale 1898" />}}

''The Atlantic''{{'}}s first issue was published in November 1857, and quickly gained notability as one of the finest magazines in the English-speaking world.

In 1878, the magazine absorbed ''[[The Galaxy (magazine)|The Galaxy]]'', a competitor monthly magazine founded a dozen years previously by [[William Conant Church]] and his brother [[Francis P. Church]]; it had published works by [[Mark Twain]], [[Walt Whitman]], [[Ion Hanford Perdicaris]] and [[Henry James]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://whitmanarchive.org/biography/correspondence/tei/prc.00024.html |title=Walt Whitman to Francis P. Church and William C. Church, 15 November 1869 (Correspondence) |website=The Walt Whitman Archive |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231002103648/https://whitmanarchive.org/biography/correspondence/tei/prc.00024.html |archive-date=October 2, 2023 |access-date=July 28, 2024 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

In 1879, ''The Atlantic'' had offices in [[Winthrop Square (Boston)|Winthrop Square]] in Boston and at 21 [[Astor Place]] in [[New York City]].<ref>''The Atlantic Monthly'', Volume 43 (1879)</ref>