Southern Accents Series - Inspiration from Lisa Newsom and Walter Mitchell

Image from Spring 1982 Southern Accents

In 1976,the year before Southern Accents was published, there were two main concerns for publisher Walter Mitchell. The first was financial(to convince the board to pay for the magazine) and the second was the format and quality of the magazine.

Funding a magazine by an already existing publishing house is different than a start up magazine. With a start up, you have to go raise the seed money from investors (and that often means begging). With an already existing publishing house, you have to convince the board of directors that your magazine is worth publishing - but this is not always an easy task. Only one in ten magazines succeed - so what sets one apart from another? In the case of Southern Accents, Mitchell had to convince the board that this magazine had something different, something special that would set it apart. He had to show why WRC Smith Publishing should take the risk on a new Southern magazine. Mitchell managed to persuade them to let him "experiment with the idea."


Living room from Tudor House, Spring 1982




The first step was testing the market place to see if there was an audience for a Southern interiors magazine. They put together a direct-mail test (four-color, six-page brochure, cover letter, and questionaire) and purchased a mailing list of fifteen hundred "connoisseurs." The test mailing received a poor response - Mitchell says "we put the idea on the back burner." What happened then? Was there an audience?

Enter Lisa Newsom in the Spring of 1977. Newsom was an Atlanta housewife and "socialite." She called Walter Mitchell because she had seen the brochure in an antique shop and wanted to know where she could get a copy of the magazine. Mitchell told her the idea had been shelved because of a poor response to the direct mail test. Lisa told Mitchell that he had mailed to the wrong audience and that she could come up with names of cultured people who would buy the magazine. She put together a list of 3000 names for Mitchell. This second direct-mail test was the same material as the first except the price of a year's subscription was dropped to $10 from $12. There was very positive response from this list and in July 1977 Mitchell was then able to convince the board to give him sixty thousand dollars to try an issue!


Dining room of the Tudor pictured above.

Truly, there would have been no Southern Accents without Lisa Newsom or Walter Mitchell. Lisa pushed for the second direct mail test and with those positive results Walter was able to persuade the board to give the magazine a try. The first issue of Southern Accents acknowledged Lisa's influence:

"And Lisa Newsom. Particularly Lisa, without whose efforts there would be no Southern Accents. Lisa was the spark, the gadfly who kept the project going when the more timid of us shrank back from the tremendous task. She demanded, insisted, begged and pleaded for the magazine. And here it is, thanks to Lisa."

This is the same Lisa Newsom who after leaving Southern Accents founded and then edited Veranda magazine for 20 years and whose daughter founded the company Wisteria. Clearly, Lisa had and has tremendous vision and ability in the shelter magazine arena.

Recently, it was announced here that she will be stepping aside as editor in chief of Veranda magazine. She will remain at Hearst as an editor at large and oversee Veranda related books.

Next in the Southern Accents Series - How they got the premier issue ready to go in three months!

All information and quotes obtained from an interview with Walter Mitchell, Sallie Smith and Helen C. Griffith, and also from Starting a New Magazine, Two Case Studies, by Martha Faye Melton.

Photography by Max Eckert

Southern Accents Series - In the Beginning

Southern Accents magazine made it's debut in the Fall of 1977. Jimmy Carter was president, Star Wars hit the movie theaters, Elvis died in August, Apple introduced the Apple II computer, red dye number two was banned (as carcinogenic), and Southern Nights by Glen Campbell was at the top of the music charts. The country was paying attention to the South in a new and positive way - perhaps we were considered to be more urbane and cultured, less provincial - since we had in fact produced a president.

Into this hip, fast paced "new reality" of the late 70's, stepped Southern Accents magazine, published by a small Atlanta trade publishing house. Founded in 1904 by WRC Smith, the firm originally focused on magazines such as Cotton and Textile Industries.

Southern Accents was the brainchild of one man - James Hooton. In 1976 Hooton worked at WRC Smith Publishing as an editor of Southern Engineering. He was an avid collector and decorator, and as such admired Architectural Digest magazine. However, he felt there was a void in the magazine's content - a lack of focus on the South. Jim was known for his good taste, decorating style, and for being a fabulous host. At a party at Jim's home, Walter Mitchell, president of WRC Smith Publishing Company, admired Jim's decorating style, and so Jim presented his idea of a "Southern Architectural Digest."

Jim Hooton said:

"I felt that the South was being neglected by the national design magazines. There's so much that's good and beautiful in this section of the country, I believed that Southerners would be receptive to this type of publication. And having worked at WRC Smith for many years, I knew the company had the skills and financial resources to produce a quality magazine."

WRC Smith Publishing Company needed something new at that time, according to Walter Mitchell. Their previous bread and butter publications were not as lucrative because of the changing environment of the hardware stores (where they sold most of their magazines) due to the new Big Box stores. So Walter, who professes that he knew nothing about interiors (to quote him: "I don't know the difference between a Chippendale and an Airedale"), decided to take a gamble and give the interiors magazine a whirl. At the time, Architectural Digest had 400,000 subscribers, Mitchell hoped to reach 100,000 of those with Southern Accents.


Milburne, in Virginia, from the Spring 1982 Southern Accents- photography by Paul Beswick



Although it was modeled after Architectural Digest, Southern Accents was not exactly like the original. One of the main differences between the two magazines was that Architectural Digest focused on homes of celebrities, Southern Accents did not. Southern Accents also focused more on historic residences and their preservation. Mitchell said: "You'll probably never see a movie star's or prince's house in Southern Accents. But readers will be treated to a continuing tour of fine Southern residences and gardens." A promotional piece used a few years after the magazine's creation, emphasized the difference:

"The Old-Confederacy--the New South--is our editorial domain, and there are not a whole lot of princes down South. Taste, not costs, sets our standard."

Next up in our Southern Accents series: seed money, developing the format, advertising and hiring new editors.


All information and quotes obtained from an interview with Walter Mitchell, Sallie Smith and Helen C. Griffith, and also from Starting a New Magazine, Two Case Studies, by Martha Faye Melton.