The Amer­i­can Spec­ta­tor was found­ed in 1924 by George Jean Nathan and Tru­man New­ber­ry over a cheap domes­tic ale in McSorley’s Old Ale House. In 1967, the Sat­ur­day Evening Club took it over, rechris­ten­ing it The Alter­na­tive: An Amer­i­can Spec­ta­tor, but by Novem­ber 1977 the word “alter­na­tive” had acquired such an eso­teric fra­grance that in order to dis­cour­age unso­licit­ed man­u­scripts from florists, beau­ti­cians, and oth­er cre­ative types, the club revert­ed to the magazine’s orig­i­nal name. Pub­lished remark­ably with­out regard to gen­der, lifestyle, race, col­or, creed, phys­i­cal hand­i­cap, or nation­al origin.

The Amer­i­can Spec­ta­tor Foun­da­tion edu­cates the pub­lic on new ideas, con­cepts, and poli­cies that favor tra­di­tion­al Amer­i­can val­ues, such as eco­nom­ic free­dom, indi­vid­ual lib­er­ty, self-suf­fi­cien­cy, and lim­it­ed gov­ern­ment. To this end, the Foun­da­tion also trains and cul­ti­vates young writ­ers for careers in jour­nal­ism and serves as an out­let for a host of both young and estab­lished con­ser­v­a­tive writ­ers and thinkers.