Munsey's Magazine was an American magazine founded by Frank Munsey in 1889 as Munsey's Weekly, a humor magazine edited by John Kendrick Bangs. It was unsuccessful, and by late 1891 had lost $100,000 ($ in ). Munsey converted it into an illustrated general monthly in October of that year, retitled Munsey's Magazine and priced at twenty-five cents ($ in ). Richard Titherington became the editor, and remained in that role throughout the magazine's existence. In 1893 Munsey cut the price to ten cents ($ in ). This brought him into conflict with the American News Company, which had a near-monopoly on magazine distribution, as they were unwilling to handle the magazine at the price Munsey proposed. Munsey started his own distribution company and was quickly successful: the first ten cent issue began with a print run of 20,000 copies but eventually sold 60,000, and within a year circulation had risen to over a quarter of a million copies.
Munsey's Magazine included both fiction and non-fiction on art, music and the theatre, and celebrities. In 1893 Munsey became one of the first publishers to regularly depict a pretty young woman on the cover, and circulation was also boosted by the liberal use of illustrations. During the mid-1890s Munsey's often included images of nude and semi-nude women, though this became less common later in the decade. Circulation peaked at about 700,000 in 1897, and fluctuated thereafter until the 1910s, when it began to decline. The magazine became fiction-only in 1921. Many popular writers appeared in its pages, including O. Henry, H. Rider Haggard, Arthur Conan Doyle, Bret Harte, Max Brand, Edgar Rice Burroughs, P. G. Wodehouse, Joseph Conrad, and Ella Wheeler Wilcox. By 1924 circulation had dwindled to 64,000 and in 1929 the magazine was merged with Argosy, another of Munsey's magazines. The price cut from twenty-five cents to ten cents is considered by historians to have been the start of a revolution in magazine publishing. Before 1893, the bulk of most magazines' income came from the sale of subscriptions, though advertising was another source. Munsey's Magazine showed that it was possible to set a low price in order to increase circulation and attract sufficient advertising revenue to make a substantial profit. Other magazines, notably McClure's and Cosmopolitan, quickly followed suit, but it was not until 1904 that Everybody's Magazine managed to outstrip Munsey's circulation, reaching a figure of almost a million.
Publication history In 1882 Frank Munsey moved from Augusta, Maine, to New York City, intending to launch a children's magazine.Britt (1972), pp. 58, 61. His main investor soon pulled out, leaving Munsey without enough capital to publish the magazine himself; instead he persuaded an existing publisher, E. G. Rideout, to take it on, with Munsey as manager and editor. The magazine was titled The Golden Argosy, and the first issue was dated December 2, 1882.Britt (1972), pp. 64–66. Rideout went bankrupt in early 1883, and Munsey took over as publisher.Britt (1972), p. 66.
The magazine was not initially profitable, and for years Munsey was under immense financial pressure. An advertising campaign in 1886 brought a surge in circulation to 115,000,Britt (1972), pp. 76–77.Munsey (1907), p. 30. but this was temporary, and though Munsey experimented with The Golden Argosy, shortening the title to just The Argosy, and changing the page size and page count, he was unable to reverse the decline.Britt (1972), pp. 67–79. In 1889 Munsey launched Munsey's Weekly, hoping that it would establish itself as profitable before The Argosy failed completely.Britt (1972), pp. 80–81.
Munsey's Weekly
The first issue of Munsey's Weekly was dated February 2, 1889. It was 36 pages long, in quarto format, and priced at ten cents ($ in ). The contents were satire and comedy: it was aimed at the same market as Life. Munsey hired John Kendrick Bangs as the founding editor;Mott (1957b), pp. 608–609. at the time Bangs was working for Harper's, but only for two afternoons a week, leaving him time to take on other responsibilities. At Harper's he was responsible for "The Editor's Drawer", a long-established humorous column. Bangs found Munsey to be difficult to work for; Bangs was used to a relaxed relationship with his previous publisher, but Munsey was constantly asking him about his work. By this time Munsey had written several novels for The Golden Argosy, and he submitted one, titled A Tragedy of Errors, to Bangs, who rejected it. Munsey insisted on running the story, and Bangs serialized it, but offered his resignation from the editorship. His last issue was in June. Bangs and Munsey remained on good terms, and Bangs subsequently sold work to Munsey, both for Munsey's Magazine (as the Weekly was later retitled) and for the Daily Continent,Bangs (1941), pp. 101–104. a short-lived tabloid version of the daily paper the New York Star, which Munsey acquired for a few months in 1891.Lee (1917), p. 373.
The magazine continued without a named editor for two more years, managed by the same team that was running The Argosy. In February 1890 Munsey bought another humorous weekly, Time (launched in 1884 as Tid-bits) and merged the subscription list with Munsey's Weekly.Mott (1957a), p. 268.Anonymous (February 22, 1890), p. 2. Munsey claimed that the acquisition would increase the Weeklys circulation from 26,000 to nearly 50,000.Anonymous (March 5, 1890), p. 441. A review in Printers' Ink that month commented that none of the weekly papers paid well for syndicated writers, with Munsey's Weekly in the middle of the pack at $5 per column ($ in ); only two magazines paid more than $5, and several paid less.Anonymous (February 12, 1890), p. 369. Circulation stayed below 40,000, which was not enough to meet its costs, and in two and a half years the magazine lost over $100,000 ($ in ).Mott (1957b), p. 609.
Munsey's Magazine
In October 1891 Munsey changed the Weekly to a monthly, titled Munsey's Magazine, and Richard Titherington, one of Munsey's earliest employees, was given the editorship.Mott (1957b), pp. 609–610. The size was reduced from quarto to standard, with 96 pages per issue, and the price increased to twenty-five cents ($ in ). The following April Munsey acquired The Epoch, a general magazine that had been launched in February 1887 by DeWitt Seligman as a ten-cent weekly, and merged it with Munsey's.Mott (1957b), p. 60.
The change to a monthly schedule did not help the circulation of Munsey's. The financial pressure on Munsey intensified, but he was able to obtain a loan for $8,000 ($ in ) through an old friend, John Fogler, who was at that time working for the First National Bank of Leavenworth in Kansas. In the Panic of 1893 the bank called in the loan, and Munsey offered Fogler half-ownership in his publishing company if he would take on the loan. Fogler declined and Munsey was forced to borrow the money elsewhere, at 18% interest.
Late in 1893 Munsey lowered the price of Munsey's to ten cents. This was not a completely new idea: the Ladies' Home Journal was priced at ten cents (and had been launched earlier in the decade at only five cents),Mott (1957b), pp. 536–539. though it was targeted at women rather than a general audience. Some of the established general magazines were also retreating from the older standard of twenty-five or thirty-five cents: McClure's was launched in June 1893 at fifteen cents, and Cosmopolitan cut its price to twelve and a half cents the next month.Mott (1957b), pp. 3–5.Munsey (1907), p. 89. The Epoch, which Munsey had acquired in 1892 and merged with Munsey's, had cost ten cents, but there had been no successful general illustrated magazine at that price.Mott (1957b), p. 610. The change brought Munsey into conflict with the American News Company (ANC), the distributor of almost all magazines of that time. ANC typically charged about five cents per copy for distributing a twenty-five or thirty-five cent magazine, but Munsey wanted a higher profit than this would give him.Munsey (December 1899), pp. 331–337. Initially ANC refused to handle the magazine at any price, but eventually they offered him four and a half cents. Munsey told them that his price was six and a half cents, and decided to bypass ANC. He notified about ten thousand dealers that ANC would not carry Munsey's Magazine, but that it could be had directly from the publisher for seven cents in New York plus the cost of shipping. Munsey knew many of the dealers, and added personal letters to the notification, but fewer than a hundred orders came in response.Britt (1972), pp. 82–86.Munsey (May 1898), pp. 222–223.
At the suggestion of Charles Dana of the New York Sun, Munsey had already set up a distribution company, named Red Star News, and Dana now gave Munsey credit to run advertisements in the Sun for the magazine. Munsey wrote again to ANC and told them he was raising his price to seven cents. He did not know that ANC were now receiving thousands of orders for Munsey's from dealers: ANC sent someone to his office in response to his letter, asking for a price for 10,000 copies. They offered to pay five and three-quarter cents, but Munsey stuck to his seven-cents price. Munsey continued to advertise: the advertisements said "On all news stands", though at first this was far from the truth. A few orders began to come in, and within ten days all 20,000 copies had been sold. Two more printings brought the total to 60,000.Britt (1972), pp. 84–85.
The advertisements and production costs brought Munsey's debts to $150,000 ($ in ). Munsey was purchasing paper on four-month credit, and the planned increase in the print run of each issue, prompted by the success of the first ten-cent issue, meant Munsey's indebtedness to his paper supplier would increase very rapidly. The paper supplier visited Munsey to say that he had talked to others in the trade, and was convinced that it was impossible for Munsey to make a success of a ten-cent magazine. Munsey was able to persuade him to extend more credit, and was quickly proved right as circulation soared over the next couple of years. The print run for November 1893 was 60,000; for December it was 100,000; for February 1894 it was 200,000; and in October 1894 it was 275,000.Mott (1957b), p. 611. The half-million mark was reached in April 1895, and in 1897 circulation peaked at 700,000.Britt (1972), pp. 85–87.Mott (1957b), pp. 611, 617. Munsey's remained the circulation leader among general magazines until late 1904, when Everybody's Magazine, propelled by a muckraking series about finance, reached a circulation of almost a million.Mott (1968), p. 81. Advertising income per issue grew with the circulation, from under $3,000 ($ in ) in October 1894 to over $30,000 in December 1895.Anonymous (March 1896), p. 760.
Rotary presses, developed in the 1860s and gradually improved over succeeding decades, began to be used for magazines in the 1880s, and in 1898 Munsey acquired one that could produce tens of thousands of copies an hour.Reed (1997), p. 42. Munsey's Magazine was not initially printed on pulp paper, and is not always regarded as a pulp magazine, but by 1900 it was using pulp paper for the signatures that did not include any illustrations, with better paper where photographs were reproduced.Reed (1997), p. 70.
Later years