June 22 (Bloomberg) -- The Saturday Evening Post magazine, a major repository of 19th- and 20th-century Americana, is combing through decades of cover art, photographs and writing to furnish a new digital archive.

As part of this process, the now-bimonthly Post has started selling reproductions of some of its famous cover art, notably more than 330 images painted by Norman Rockwell.

Among them is his Sept. 25, 1954, cover showing a working- class father about to send his eager, suit-clad son off to college. The original painting, titled, “Breaking Home Ties,” sold in 2006 for $15.4 million at Sotheby’s New York, an auction record for the artist.

On the Post’s Web site, a framed print of the work sells for as little as about $68. Other featured artists are J.C. Leyendecker and Charles Livingston Bull.

The Rockwell covers were painted between 1916 and 1963 and often capture simple moments from an idealized small-town U.S.A. as well as portraits of presidents such as Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon.

“The archive shows how we’ve evolved,” said Joan SerVaas, the magazine’s publisher, in an interview at Bloomberg’s New York headquarters. “It’s not sanitized for the politically correct. It is what it was.”

While it’s still a work in progress, said SerVaas, 55, the archive will offer Web access to original illustrations, manuscripts and advertisements along with reproductions for sale.

Poe and Twain

The Post, once the most popular magazine in the country, traces its roots to the four-page “Pennsylvania Gazette” published by Benjamin Franklin in 1728, according to the magazine’s Web site. Renamed “The Saturday Evening Post” in 1821, it was bought by publisher Cyrus H.K. Curtis for $1,000 in 1897, the Web site says.

Over the years, contributors included major U.S. writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain and F. Scott Fitzgerald as well as Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Gertrude Stein wrote an essay entitled, “Money, Money, Money,” SerVaas said.

The magazine rejected Ernest Hemingway’s stories in 1919, when the young writer was still known as Ernie. In 1966 his bearded face appeared on its cover, though “it was merely to promote a bio of him by his friend A.E. Hotchner,” writes Shirrel Rhoades, the magazine’s editorial director in the current issue of the Post, as a postscript to a story by the writer’s grandson, John Hemingway.

The Post “ran into some troubles in the ‘60s,” SerVaas said. “People were going to TV. The editors thought TV was a fad. They were so defensive about it, they ignored it.”

Closed and Reopened

By 1969 the magazine had to close, SerVaas said. In 1970, her father, Beurt SerVaas, bought Curtis Publishing Co. and resumed publication of the Post the following year. Average paid circulation is about 355,000 today, with a cover price of $3.99.

In 1971, Rockwell phoned the new owner, asking if he could get back 13 paintings, used for the magazine’s covers. He wanted to donate them to his museum in Massachusetts, she said.

“I don’t know if my father regrets this or not, but he gave them back,” said SerVaas.

“He had an uncanny ability to connect with readers,” SerVaas said of Rockwell. “If the cover was fun and witty, they sold more issues. And he just got it.”

To contact the reporter of this story: Katya Kazakina in New York at kkazakina@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 22, 2009 00:01 EDT