In an age before radio and television claimed the attention of Americans, reading was one of the most popular leisure-time activities. American writers and publishers churned out a variety of reading material to suit the tastes of every reader, from comic strips to magazines to dime novels to classics.

The comic strip was created just before the turn of the century when Richard Outcault (1863–1928) created a character known as the Yellow Kid in a series known as Hogan's Alley. Later strips such as The Katzenjammer Kids and Mutt & Jeff made such characteristics as word balloons, a distinctive cast of characters, and the use of a series of panels the common conventions of the comic strip. Still, by 1908 there were only five newspapers that ran daily comic strips.

Although magazines—collections of fiction and nonfiction often published on a weekly or a monthly schedule—had...