About The Book
It’s been said that every magazine publisher hopes to change the world in some way… but when Benjamin Franklin announced his plans to launch America’s first magazine, not even he could have imagined how magazine publishing would transform American life. Since 1741 American magazines have changed the world in countless ways, countless times, sometimes through success and often despite setbacks and failure—as Franklin discovered when a competitor stole his idea and beat him to the market.
Even small, short-lived magazines can be catalysts of large, long-lasting change. Magazines engage people’s passions—a powerful, sometimes unpredictable force. But magazines aren’t just records of “human nature and popular movements,” as one historian wrote. Each copy of an American magazine is a cultural artifact reflecting its audience, its market, and life in the United States on the day it was published.
Magazines shaped American literature and journalism. They gave life to the American short story and provided a livelihood to American writers during the country’s early decades. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the magazine industry shaped the American media landscape. Magazines were the first national medium to build large audiences subsidized by advertising sales, the business model later adopted by radio, TV, and the Internet. And by the same token, magazines were the first American medium to build interactive communities around specialized interests.
The story of American magazines is a fascinating chronicle and ThinkingPeriodically.org exists to share a few chapters in the story. The site is a public repository for material from a book in progress, American Magazines Before 1900: A Publisher’s History.
The material focuses on the economic context in which magazine publishing occurs. Previous histories have concentrated on writers, artists, and editors, but American Magazines Before 1900 looks as well at the business side of magazine publishing. This is a less-explored area, and an important one, since paying the bills has been a primary challenge for virtually everyone who ever ran a magazine.
In coming years digital publishing will face many of the uncertainties that American magazine publishers confronted in the past, and the direction that publishing takes in the future will be influenced by decisions publishers made many long years ago.
As the book progresses this site will grow. Check back from time to time! In the meantime, we hope you enjoy what you find now. Here’s the table of contents.
The author welcomes comments and corrections. You can reach him here.