Maclean's is a Canadian weekly news magazine, reporting on Canadian issues such as politics, pop culture, and current events.

History

Founded in 1905 by Toronto journalist/entrepreneur Lt.-Col. John Bayne Maclean. The 43-year-old trade magazine publisher purchased an advertising agency's in-house business journal — along with its 5,000-strong subscription base. The Business Magazine, was launched in October of that year as a pocket-sized digest of articles gathered from Canadian, British and U.S. periodicals. It sold 6,000 copies. Inside its bright blue cover, the fledgling monthly anointed itself, "the Cream of the World's magazines reproduced for Busy People". Its aim, Maclean wrote a year later, was not "merely to entertain but also to inspire its readers." It was renamed The Busy Man's Magazine in December 1905, and began soliciting original manuscripts on varied topics such as immigration, national defence, woman's suffrage and home life as well as fiction. Maclean renamed the magazine after himself in 1911, dropping the previous title as too evocative of a business magazine for what had become a general interest publication.

Maclean hired Thomas B. Costain as editor in 1917. Costain invigorated the magazine's coverage of the First World War, running first-person accounts of life on the Western Front and critiques of Canada's war effort that came into conflict with wartime censorship regulations. Costain was ordered to remove an article by Maclean himself as it was too critical of war policy.

Costain encouraged literary pieces and artistic expressions and ran fiction by Robert Service, Lucy Maud Montgomery and O. Henry, commentary by Stephen Leacock and illustrations by C. W. Jefferys, F.S. Coburn and several Group of Seven members, including A. J. Casson, Arthur Lismer and J. E. H. MacDonald.1.

In 1919, the magazine moved from monthly to fortnightly publication and ran a notable expose of the drug trade by Emily Murphy. Costain left the magazine to become a novelist and was replaced by J. Vernon Mackenzie who remained at the helm until 1926. During his tenure, Maclean's achieved national stature.

H. Napier Moore became the new editor. An Englishman, he saw the magazine as an expression of Canada's role in the British Empire. Moore ultimately became a figurehead with the day to day running of the magazine falling to managing editor W. Arthur Irwin, a Canadian nationalist, who saw the magazine as an exercise in nation-building, giving it a mandate to promote national pride. Under Irwin's influence, the magazine's covers promoted Canadian scenery and imagery - the magazine also sponsored an annual short story contest on Canadian themes and acquired a sports department. Irwin was also responsible for orienting the magazine towards both small and big "l" Liberalism.