Nationality American Education New York University | Occupation Author, Professor | |
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Born January 18, 1945 (age 72) ( 1945-01-18 ) Bronx, New York | ||
Abe Peck is a magazine consultant, writer and professor, known for having been an editor and writer at the Chicago Seed underground newspaper from 1968-1971.
Peck was born in the Bronx, New York on Jan 18, 1945. He graduated from NYU with a degree in history and pursued graduated studies before dropping out of school and into New York's East Village. In 1967, he landed in Chicago, where, after driving a company car to the Pentagon Demonstration, he began writing for The Seed. He became editor soon afterward, and led the paper toward the Yippies (Youth International Party), a group that planning surrealistic-oriented events for the 1968 Democratic Convention. Despite a split with Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin over tactics and transparency, he and other Seed staffers appeared in Lincoln Park throughout the demonstrations. The magazine grew increasingly radical and Peck left the paper in 1970.
A freelance writing job led to an associate editorship at Rolling Stone magazine, where he edited, wrote features and edited the book dancing Madness." In 1977, he returned to Chicago and worked as a feature writer, section editor and weekly columnist at The Chicago Daily News and then The Chicago Sun-Times. He has subsequently written for several publications, most recently as a Master Series Contributing Editor for Travel Weekly. He is a principal in the firm Peck Consultants, for which he has performed more than 100 audits of magazines in various publishing platforms. He also lectures on various media topics in the United States and abroad.
In 1980, Peck began a career as a professor at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. He held two named chairs and various departmental positions. He also earned tenure, in part for authoring the book Uncovering the Sixties: The Life and Times of the Underground Press. According to WorldCat, the book is held in 562 libraries. In 2008, Peck assumed emeritus status and moved to Santa Barbara, California, but remains the school's Director of Business to Business Communication. He co-edited Medill on Media Engagement with Edward Malthouse.