BYSTANDER - The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History

The BYSTANDER began publication as the Country Club News, probably ca. Jan. 1921. Strictly social in orientation, the monthly magazine seems to have been run largely by the efforts of female volunteers, among them GRACE GOULDER-IZANT†. It became the Town & Country Club News in Dec. 1926, with Chas. T. Henderson as editor. Shortly thereafter it was incorporated as the Town Publishing Co. by Warren C. Platt and moved to the Penton Bldg. on W. 3rd St. Conversion into a weekly on 21 Apr. 1928 put Town & Country Club News in a position to rival the cultural coverage of the older CLEVELAND TOWN TOPICS. Renamed the Bystander in Aug. 1928, it began running feature articles on subjects ranging from the Goodyear Blimp to PETER WITT†. It absorbed its rival on 14 Dec. 1929, when it appeared as the Bystander Combined with Cleveland Town Topics, appropriating even the volume numbers of the older publication. Despite the benefits of the merger, the ensuing Depression eventually ate into the Bystander's gains. "Cleveland's Pictorial News Magazine," as it billed itself in 1933, was less than half its pre-Depression size, and its price had been cut correspondingly from $.15 to $.10. Published on a biweekly schedule during the summer of 1933, it reverted to a monthly the following February and made its final appearance in Apr. 1934.

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