Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/400

 384 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

We propose to fill these pages with such matter as will make this publica- tion a Chicago-western magazine. We shall aim to make it a vade mecum between the East and the West a go-between carrying to the men of the East a true picture of the West which will satisfy their desire for informa- tion on the great topics connected with this part of their common country. We therefore bespeak for our work a place in the eastern market, and some offset there to the competition we must meet with in the circulation of eastern periodicals in the western field. The West will learn to patronize this monthly for the love of its own ideas ; the East will read it to get that knowledge of us which they cannot get from any other source.

In the April number the publisher said : " Buy extra copies to send east." In the August number, which was the last, there appeared an advertisement addressed to "Men of the West," urging them to purchase copies of the magazine, and thereby aid in establishing a literature of their own, and a monthly magazine, also of their own, " as good as Harper's, Putnam's, or Godey's."

An exclusively western support was all that the periodical publishers of the forties and earlier fifties had sought. The Gem of the Prairie, 1844-52, in its editorial columns from time to time asked for " such support as it might receive from the people of the northwestern states of the Union." In 1851, the last year before its identity was submerged in that of the Tribune, the editor announced that for six years the periodical had enjoyed such support. As a result, the Gem of the Prairie could then be regarded as " established on a permanent basis." The publisher of the Western Magazine, 1845-46, Chicago's initial venture in magazine form, rated the western demand for a western periodical of that type as large enough to furnish permanent support. Many subsequent projectors of western magazines have held to the same belief. The Literary Budget, 1852-55, expected western sub- scribers only, and called upon " the friends of western literature " to organize clubs for co-operation " in the maintenance of a good literary paper in this section of the country."

The number of copies in the Literary Budget's first issue on becoming a weekly, January 7, 1854, as recorded in an editorial announcement, was 3,000. This is the only figure on the circu- lation of ante-bellum periodicals that could be found. The first of the annual Newspaper Directories, which are the chief source