Frank Luther Mott

Frank Luther Mott (April 4, 1886 in Rose Hill, Iowa – October 23, 1964 in Columbia, Missouri) was an American historian and journalist, who won the 1939 Pulitzer Prize for History for Volumes II and II of his series, A History of American Magazines.

Mott was born in Rose Hill, Iowa. His parents were Mary E. (Tipton) and David Charles Mott, publishers of the weekly What Cheer, Iowa Patriot. The Mott family owned a print shop in Keokuk County. He was a practicing Quaker.

Mott taught English at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa and was the head of the Journalism Department at the University of Iowa (UI) for 20 years until his appointment as dean of the University of Missouri (MU)'s School of Journalism in 1942.

Mott may have coined the term photojournalism in 1924. He was influential in the development of photojournalism education: the first photojournalism class was taught at UI during his tenure, and the first photojournalism program, directed by Clifton C. Edom, started at MU in 1943 upon his request.

His textbook on American Journalism: A History of Newspapers in the United States through 250 years 1690 to 1940 (1941 and later revised editions covering through 1960) was the standard resource in courses on the history of journalism.

Mott was a lifelong lover of magazines, his father having hoarded them in the house. His monumental series, A History of American Magazines, started as PhD work at Columbia in the late 1920s. It was projected as six volumes. However, other projects, such as American Journalism, derailed his progress. Four volumes of American Magazines carried the history up to 1905. Mott died after starting work on Volume V: 1905-1930. Volume V does not extend the history past 1905; it includes 21 of a projected 36 sketches of individual magazines, intended as the supplementary material to the 1905-1930 history. It also includes an index for all five volumes. Presumably, Volume VI would have covered the history from 1931 to Mott's present-day, plus additional supplementary materials.

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