Background
He was born on October 4, 1892 in Omaha, Nebraska, United States, the son of Louis Smart, a barber and voice teacher who had emigrated from Russia, and Mary Aronson Smart.
He was born on October 4, 1892 in Omaha, Nebraska, United States, the son of Louis Smart, a barber and voice teacher who had emigrated from Russia, and Mary Aronson Smart.
He attended Crane Technical High School in Chicago for two years but left before graduating.
In 1911 he became an advertising salesman for the Chicago Tribune, and three years later he established his own agency. After serving in World War I with a field artillery unit of the American Expeditionary Forces, he became a commodities speculator, reaping profits of $750, 000. An acquaintance recalled that in this period Smart had "a derby hat, a raccoon coat, a Stutz Bearcat, and a roll (of money) that would choke a horse. "
With the postwar market decline, Smart returned to advertising. In 1921, with his brother Alfred, he founded the David A. Smart Publishing Company. After publishing a menswear trade magazine, Smart bought into the Man of Today in 1926, transforming it into Gentlemen's Quarterly, which was distributed free to customers. A companion booklet, Club and Campus, was introduced; in 1928 Arnold Gingrich joined the staff as an advertising copywriter.
In 1931 Smart founded Apparel Arts, an elaborately produced publication that appeared eight times yearly. The immediate success of this last venture convinced Smart that a large audience existed for a similar consumer magazine; and on October 15, 1933, the first issue of Esquire: The Magazine for Men, was published. Published monthly from then on, at the then high price of fifty cents. Under the editorship of Gingrich, the magazine was soon publishing many noted writers.
Among Smart's inspirations was the development of the Petty Girl, a creation of the artist George Petty. Petty Girl drawings appeared in virtually every issue of Esquire until Smart's death, as did those of Alberto Vargas, in the same genre. In 1936 circulation reached 550, 000 copies, and the magazine's earnings enabled Smart to start Coronet as a tax loss. A pocket magazine containing no advertising (until 1948), it first appeared in November 1936 .
Another brief venture saw Smart as the American representative of the French artistic and literary quarterly Verve (1937 - 1940). Smart's hypochondria and phobia of germs increased markedly during the decade before his death, in Chicago, during an operation for removal of an intestinal polyp.
David Archibald Smart was co-founder of Esquire magazine, where such noted writers as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, H. L. Mencken, and John Dos Passos were published, more over, it remained profitable despite the Great Depression. He also was co-founder of the David A. Smart Publishing Company, specializing in merchandising and promotional ideas for haberdasheries and banks. Besides, he was the publisher of Coronet, that became one of the leading newsstand publications in the United States.
Somewhat of an autocrat, he possessed an abrasive personality and his decisions were rarely challenged.
On October 6, 1942, Smart married Edna Gabrielle Richards, a former dancer. They had no children.
