Munsey's Magazine
In 1893, a former telegraph operator named Frank A. Munsey made his namesake the first nationally distributed and mass-read magazine. Munsey, who had grown up poor in rural Maine, recognized that most of the growing American middle class could not afford magazines, so he dropped the cover price of his failing literary monthly from twenty-five to ten cents per copy. Advertisers made up the difference by paying more for and increasing the number of their ads. Munsey also proved that sex sold magazines, publishing a regular page called "Artists & Their Work" which featured a half-tone photograph of a draped or undraped female in an artistic setting. Munsey's Magazine jumped in readership overnight, becoming the world circulation leader by 1907, and came to be recognized as the prototype of the modern popular magazine. As he made his magazine universally available, Frank Munsey also paved the way for what is now called the Information Age.
The first two American magazines, published by Andrew Bradford and Benjamin Franklin, appeared in 1741, but the periodical industry grew slowly over the next century. Thousands of titles appeared, but all but a very few were financial failures with low circulations, little or no advertising, and poor revenue.
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