Playboy
American magazine launched by Hugh Hefner in Chicago in 1953, combining erotic photography with interviews, fiction, illustration, journalism and a highly recognisable lifestyle brand.
Playboy
The first issue appeared in December 1953 with Marilyn Monroe on the cover. Over subsequent decades Playboy became one of the most widely recognised American magazines, using photography and sexual liberalism alongside long-form interviews, fiction, illustration and cultural journalism. Its print history has included substantial shifts and interruptions, but the title remains a major reference point in twentieth-century magazine and popular-culture history.
Why it matters
TMR treats Playboy not simply as adult publishing but as an influential intersection of photography, celebrity, graphic design, censorship, sexual politics and mass-market magazine culture.
Associated people
Coverage
2 objects
TMR holdings represented across 1988–1989.