§16. Popular Magazines. XIX. Later Magazines. Vol. 17. Later National Literature, Part II. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature: An Encyclopedia in Eighteen Volumes. 1907

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
VOLUME XVII. Later National Literature, Part II.

XIX. Later Magazines.

§ 16. Popular Magazines.

The most significant group of later popular magazines had its phenomenal development in New York during the last decade of the nineteenth century and the earlier years of the twentieth. The most conspicuous members of this group, with the dates of their establishment were: The Cosmopolitan (1886, founded in Rochester but removed to New York in 1887), Munsey’s (1891), McClure’s (1893), Everybody’s (1899), The American (1906), Hampton’s (1908). All of these were profusely illustrated, mostly with half-tone engravings; all of them were supported chiefly by the advertising pages—the improvement of the half-tone process and the development of advertising being the two things that made them economically possible. All of them were planned as business enterprises, rather than as mediums for the literary expression of certain communities or groups of authors. All of them sold for some years, as a result of competition, at the surprisingly low rate of ten cents a copy of one dollar a year. All of them attained large circulations, estimated in several instances as nearly three-fourths of a million copies of each issue.