The New Yorker’s Aug 31, 1946 issue with cover art by Charles E. Martin. Possibly the only surviving original with its white obi band intact. Loaned to the New York Public Library from John Hersey High School, Arlington Heights, Ill. [3000×4000] [OC]

[display description, New York Public Library](https://i.ibb.co/WWVRv1vy/20250221-164254.jpg)

[“THIS ENTIRE ISSUE”

CHARLES E. MARTIN (1910-1995), cover artist

The New Yorker, August 31, 1946

John Hersey High School, District 214, Arlington Heights, Illinois
Editors Harold Ross and William Shawn recognized the global impact that Hersey’s “Hiroshima,” and the magazine’s decision to print the 30,000-word story in one issue, would have. To alert readers to this unusual circumstance, and to serve as a warning about the sensitive content therein, the publishers decided to wrap the issues distributed at New York City newsstands with a strip of white paper, known as an obi band, printed with the words: “This entire issue is devoted to the story of how an atomic bomb destroyed a city.”
Readers likely discarded the ephemeral content warning: today, almost no copies of the August 31, 1946, issue with the intact band are extant.]

https://www.d214.org/newyorker

*What makes this copy particularly unique is that it still has the white band alerting readers to the magazine’s content. This “obi” band was only placed on copies distributed at newsstands in New York City, and only a few thousand of these editions were ever produced.*

*In 2021, author Lesley M. M. Blume appeared on our ARCLight Podcast to discuss John Hersey and her book Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World. When presented with this copy of The New Yorker, she was astonished. “I’ve never seen the band,” she exclaimed. For years, she had contacted rare ephemera and book dealers in search of a copy with the elusive white band.*

*As it turns out, John Hersey High School holds the only known copy.*