Mass Market Magazine Revolution

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Mass Market Magazine Revolution

Before the nineteenth century, few Americans read newspapers or magazines or engaged in public entertainment. By 1900, scheduled sporting, entertainment, and mass cultural events had become commonplace in the United States, and there was a small, but growing, number of magazines with circulation in excess of one-half million copies. Americans were becoming increasingly dependent upon these magazines to define important aspects of their lives.

There were many reasons for the transformation of American society from isolated regional communities into a single national mass culture, but the emergence of national mass market magazines beginning in the 1890s was a significant factor. With titles such as Munsey's, McClure's, Ladies Home Journal, and Cosmopolitan, these new magazines provided information on society, fashion, literature, entertainment, celebrities, sports, and current events. The consumption of mass market products not only kept readers up-to-date, but helped to make them more socially conversant and economically prosperous. In turn, the mass market magazine revolution made possible the development of twentieth-century mass culture, from sound recordings to the Internet, to the rise of the Information Age.

For most of civilization, people depended upon each other for information and entertainment. Talking, gossiping, singing, story telling, dancing, and the playing of homemade musical instruments were basic forms of amusement, combined with informal competitive activities, such as athletic contests for males and domestic competitions for females.

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