Langston Hughes, Esquire, and the Professional-Managerial Class

In 1934, Esquire used the prospective publication of Langston Hughes’s “A Good Job Gone” as a foundational event in the creation of the magazine’s readership. Esquire sought to interpolate a consuming male audience by soliciting feedback on the magazine’s features and surveying its readership’s response to the potential publication of Hughes’s story. In so doing, Esquire shaped a community of reading that was influential to the developing culture of the professional-managerial class. Though the Hughes episode played a distinct role in the creation of Esquire’s community of reading, “A Good Job Gone” actually complicates the masculinity project proffered by Esquire.