Light Metal Age (LMA) is pleased to announce its 70th anniversary of continuous publication. The technical trade publication was inaugurated in May 1943 by Roy Fellom, Jr., combining his personal interests and educational background as a mining engineer with the family publishing business started by his father. With its first issue (cover pictured), Roy printed a dedication that read:
Light Metal Age, with this initial issue, dedicates itself…
To further the interests of the Light Metal industry;
To promote the use and applications of Magnesium and Aluminum, and their alloys, by suggesting their specific advantages and adaptations to different fields;
To educate and instruct in the working and handling of Light Metals by detailing actual methods and shop practices;
To help to more quickly develop the Light Metal Industry through publication of discoveries, advances and improvements in production and fabrication processes;
To weld the Light Metal Industry—researchist, fabricator, producer, and consumer—closer together by the creation of a common medium of expression; and
To herald the new LIGHT METAL ERA, which shall see these most abundant basic metals brough to the service of man in all the common uses where metal is required.
Since its initial publication, LMA has followed through on its promises, devoting itself to the publication of technical articles and editorial content covering aluminum, as well as magnesium and titanium.
LMA was first published in Chicago, IL, close to the commercial and industrial center of the U.S. and remained in the location from 1943 to 1954. The headquarters moved to San Francisco, CA, in 1955 and to South San Francisco in 1989.
LMA began as a magazine with a national circulation and international coverage. By the early 1970s, the magazine was being read around the world and today, LMA has one of the highest number of paid international readerships of all the magazines covering this sector. The same editorial scope has remained: primary and secondary production and semi-fabrication of aluminum, magnesium, and titanium, and their ancillary processes. Through the years, the dominant editorial coverage has been of aluminum—the leading light metal market. LMA has devoted itself to covering the state-of-the-art processing of light metals from a technical standpoint and to bringing this knowledge to people working in these industries. Today, LMA’s archive of technical articles numbers over 3,000.
- In 1970, at the 20th Annual Anniversary of the Aluminum Extruders Council, LMA was honored with a resolution passed by the board of directors that read, “The Officers, Directors, and Members of the Aluminum Extruders Council extend to Roy Fellom, Jr. their warm and grateful thanks and appreciation for his generous coverage of Council activities in Light Metal Age over many years, plus many articles of interest to the industry.”
- In 1992, Roy Fellom, Jr. was recognized for “his half century of dedicated service as a publisher of LMA, his devotion to the industry, and his exemplary support of the International Aluminum Extrusion Technology (ET) seminars” with the Maurice H. Roberts Award of Excellence, presented at ET ’92.
- In 1993, Roy Fellom, Jr. passed away. Following his death, his daughters, Ann Marie Fellom and Wanda L. Fellom, carried on his legacy by continuing to publish LMA with Ann Marie taking the helm as publisher.
- In 2000, LMA was named the official publication of the Seventh International Aluminum Extrusion Technology Seminar (ET 2000), and has remained the official publication for each subsequent ET seminar.
- In 2006, LMA donated Roy Fellom, Jr.’s extensive library of 692 books, covering all topics of light metal production, to the Paul V. Galvin Library at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago.
- In 2007, Joseph C. Benedyk, research professor at IIT, was named editor of the magazine. He continues as editor to the present day and has contributed 114 technical articles to LMA.
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Visit the Light Metal Age news page to see other historic events.