Researching Abe Peck

Peck was born in the Bronx, New York on Jan 18, 1945. He graduated from NYU with a degree in history and pursued graduate studies before dropping out of school and into New York's East Village. In 1967, he landed in Chicago, where, after driving a company car to the Pentagon Demonstration, he began writing for The Seed. He became editor soon afterward, and led the paper toward the Yippies (Youth International Party), a group that planning surrealistic-oriented events for the 1968 Democratic Convention. Despite a split with Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin over tactics and transparency, he and other Seed staffers appeared in Lincoln Park throughout the demonstrations. The paper was known for its colorful printing, artwork and comix. “Covers … favored bold images that told a bigger story instead of everyday photos ("Everyone knew what Vietnam and the military looked like," says Peck). The inside could be just as striking, featuring poster-size pullouts with Day-Glo ink, gradient backgrounds, a wealth of major-label music ads, and intricate drawings.” While supporting various movements, the Seed remained independent of organizational affiliation. "Although the paper was far left leaning, it was known for its independence and impartiality on left wing issues, not subscribing to a particular ideology, which was unusual for the time.”

Eventually though, the magazine grew increasingly radical and Peck left the paper in 1970.

Freelance writing led to an associate editorship at Rolling Stone magazine, where he edited, wrote features and edited the book Dancing Madness." In 1977, he returned to Chicago and worked as a feature writer, section editor and weekly columnist at The Chicago Daily News and then The Chicago Sun-Times. He has subsequently written for several publications, most recently as a Master Series Contributing Editor for Travel Weekly. He is a principal in the firm Peck Consultants, for which he has performed more than 100 audits of magazines in various publishing platforms. He also lectures on various media topics in the United States and abroad. In 2019, Peck became executive editor of Inside Unmanned Systems and Inside GNSS, two magazines serving the unmanned vehicle and global navigation satellite systems fields.

In 1980, Peck began a career as a professor at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. He held two named chairs and various departmental positions, as well as the founding directorship of the National Arts Journalism Program. He also earned tenure, in part for authoring the book Uncovering the Sixties: The Life and Times of the Underground Press. According to WorldCat, the book is held in 562 libraries. In 2008, Peck assumed emeritus status and moved to Santa Barbara, California, but remains the school's Director of Business to Business Communication. He co-edited Medill on Media Engagement with Edward Malthouse.

Peck has been honored with a lifetime achievement award in 2008 from ASBPE, the business-to-business editors association, and was recognized as professor of the year in 2003 by the magazine division of AEJMC, the Association for Excellence in Journalism and Mass Communication. He is a member of the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame.

Peck is married to Suzanne Peck, and has two sons, Rob Peck, a digital marketer and Doug Peck, a music director.