The Atlantic is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher, founded in 1857 as The Atlantic Monthly in Boston, Massachusetts. 

The publication is majority owned by Emerson Collective, an organization led by the billionaire philanthropist and investor Laurene Powell Jobs, which purchased its stake in 2017 from businessman and publisher David G. Bradley, who retains a minority interest and remains the operating partner. 

Created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine, it has a reputation in the 21st century for a politically moderate viewpoint in its reporting. The magazine has notably recognized and published new writers and poets, as well as encouraged major careers. In the 19th century, it published leading writers' commentary on abolition, education, and other major issues in contemporary political affairs, and continued to publish leading intellectual thought. The periodical was named Magazine of the Year by the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) in 2016. 

The first issue of the magazine was published by Phillips, Sampson and Company on November 1, 1857. Phillips, Sampson and Company was a very well known publishing firm, led by Moses Dresser Phillips, and "The Atlantic Monthly's" successful launch in the midst of the Panic of 1857 was due in no small part to the firm's established name, Phillips, Sampson and Company's recruitment of popular contributors, and Moses Dresser Phillips's marketing and distribution efforts.The magazine's initiator, and one of the founders, was Francis H. Underwood, an assistant to Moses Dresser Phillips. Underwood received less recognition than his partners because he was "neither a 'humbug' nor a Harvard man". The other founding sponsors were prominent writers, including: Ralph Waldo Emerson; Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Harriet Beecher Stowe; John Greenleaf Whittier; and James Russell Lowell, who served as its first editor.
by whom?
American Society of Magazine Editors