It has been said that Emory O. Cunningham, Chairman Emeritus of Southern Progress Corporation, is as Southern as his magazines. That is, he built a publishing dynasty from a small farm journal by blending gentlemanly ways with business acumen and Alabama charm with long-range planning. Certainly, he has long been an exponent of what is good about his beloved region, and the Southern Progress Corporation publications have reflected his attitude.
The youngest of six children, Emory Cunningham was born March 17, 1921, in Kansas, Alabama (Walker County). His father, Emory, farmed and mined coal at a time when farming was difficult and incomes low. His mother, Belle (Kelley) Cunningham was a wellknown teacher in Walker County. After graduating from Carbon Hill High School in 1938, the young man entered Gulf Coast Junior College in Perkinston, Mississippi, on a football scholarship and had a distinguished junior college career. Following military service as a navy pilot in the South Pacific during World War II, he entered Auburn University and earned a B.S. in Agriculture in 1948.
He then joined the Progressive Farmer Company in Birmingham. Following a brief orientation program in Birmingham, he was assigned to the company’s Chicago office where he established several company records in advertising sales. In March 1956, he returned to the home office in Birmingham and was by 1960 promoted to Marketing Director.
In 1964, he made the very first presentation to the Progressive Farmer Company Board of Directors on the merits of the company’s establishing a magazine for Southerners. A little more than a year later, the firm launched Southern Living, and it was to become a phenomenon in the magazine publishing industry – becoming the largest and most successful regional magazine in the world.
Emory Cunningham became company president in 1968 and chairman of the board in 1984. Under his leadership the Progressive Farmer Company changed to Southern Progress Corporation which began to publish Creative Ideas for Living, Cooking Light, Oxmoor House Books, and Southern Accents.
In 1985, Time Inc. bought Southern Progress Corp. for $480 million. Emory Cunningham (then Chairman and CEO of Southern Progress) said that the firm’s 200-odd shareholders, mostly descendants of four founding families, sold their interests for estate-tax purposes.
He also said, ‘We are very pleased to be a part of Time, Inc., a company known for excellence in publishing. Combining the know-how and resources of these two companies should work to the benefit of both.”
Southern Progress Corp. continued to operate as a stand-alone unit. The management team remained in place, and his successor came from Southern Progress, not Time. The company continues to grow.
Through the years, Emory Cunningham’s belief in the South has led him to support educational endeavors in Alabama; to support community activities; and to support growth in Alabama’s economy.
He has served his alma mater (Auburn) as a member of the Board of Trustees and has established an Eminent Scholar Chair of Environmental Science there. He is a member of the President’s Cabinet at The University of Alabama and of the Advisory Board of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He has contributed his time and expertise as a guest lecturer at various universities, including the Capstone, UAB, Rice University, and the University of Georgia. He has been a Director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi and a trustee of the Alabama Association of Independent Colleges.
He and Southern Progress Corporation have made generous gifts for the development of education at UAB, such as the Alabama Heart Hospital, the Writer-in-Residence Program, and an endowment for the Preventive Dentistry Programs of the School of Dentistry.
In the community and state, Emory Cunningham has served numerous groups in a variety of capacities. For example, he has served on the Advisory Boards of the Salvation Army and the Boy Scouts of America. He has been a director of the Birmingham Kiwanis Club, the Birmingham Area Chamber of Commerce, the UAB Health Services Foundation, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, and the Alabama 4-H Club Foundation. He has served on the boards of the Birmingham Museum of Art, the Birmingham Symphony, and the Alabama Heart Association.
Having been raised on a farm, Emory Cunningham has always been involved in helping the development of agriculture in the South, through his publications and personal involvement.
For example, in his editorials, he encouraged farmers to diversify, and he urged Congress to continue funding agricultural research which had eradicated problems and thus made productivity better and saved money. He even appeared before a Congressional Committee to plead the case for continuing funding. He has also led agricultural leaders of the South on a study – visits to dozens of foreign countries – from Europe to Asia to Africa.
To Emory Cunningham, nature is more than something to get out and frolic in – it provides solace to the soul. Thus, trees, land, flowers, etc. should be cherished and treated with respect. Such beliefs in the efficacy of preserving the environment led him to demand that the Southern Progress Corp. headquarters, built in 1973, disturb the landscape as little as possible. The resulting structure later earned awards for the design and preservation of the natural landscape.
Through the years, Emory Cunningham has received numerous accolades for his varied contributions and accomplishments. Professionally, he has been named, for example, as Man of the Year in Southern Advertising by the Birmingham Advertising Club and also as Magazine Publisher of the Year by the Magazine Publishers Association, New York City. He has been the recipient of the Communicator of the Year Award from the Sales and Marketing Executives International and the Alabama Free Enterprise Award from the National Farm-City Week Committee. He has been named the Man of the Year in Service to Alabama Agriculture by the Birmingham Area Chamber of Commerce.
He has been awarded honorary doctorate degrees from his alma mater (Auburn University) and from The University of Alabama. He has also been named to the Agricultural Hall of Fame at Auburn and to the Alabama Academy of Honor.
Neither awards nor profits have ever been of special interest to Emory Cunningham. He has been driven by a lifelong ambition to help improve the quality of life in Alabama and the South.
Emory Cunningham is married to former Jeanne Loftis. They have four children: James Emory, David Lee, Sara Jeanne Bright, and Mary Lou Beck.
