The image of “Fortune” was deeply connected with a specific artistic American tradition of Social Realism. The Magazine was founded in 1939, in the era of the Great Depression and an art director like Leo Lionni, who was resonsible for the appearence of the magazine from 1940 on,updated this specific ethos by engaging illustrators like Robert Weaver, who continued the tradition of the “Masses” and the Ashcan School by sending artists on stories. “Lionni trusted the artist, and once he picked the right practitioner, he let him alone”(Robert Weaver, in: Steven Heller, Innovators of American Illustration.1986)