Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/402

 386 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

words Western Magazine. The name of William Rounseville, as author, appears in the first number at the head of five articles, including the first instalment of a serial story entitled " A Pioneer of the Prairies."

The development of western literary talent was the chief task which this editor undertook. Since his day editors and publishers in Chicago have discovered and brought out many writers, though some have not laid so much emphasis on that part of their work. Mr. Rounseville's first editorial chat with his public was headed "Our Contributors." He cited the fact that several entire strangers to him had contributed, as evidence of the interest in literary efforts here. William H. Bushnell, a journeyman printer who was the most prolific of the pioneer writers, contributed a "Legend of the Upper Mississippi," entitled " Ke-O-Sau-Que," and a poem on "The Dead Indian." J. T. Trowbridge, another prairie poet, was the contributor of some verses on " The Prairie Land." The number contained a few woodcuts. The best of the illustrations was a picture of Starved Rock, accompanying a legend of that historic spot.

The style of many of the contributions to the Western Maga- zine was crude, though in some the literary form was excellent. Without doubt, Rounseville & Co. paid little or nothing for articles and stories. Mr. Rounseville sold out after issuing ten numbers, and the purchaser suspended publication after the twelfth num- ber of the magazine. The founder's belief that "the western people were able and willing to support a magazine of their own " had not materialized in cash. Lack of attention to the commer- cial side of the enterprise was a prime cause for the brevity of its life.

The name of Benjamin F. Taylor, a brilliant literary man, is given in the histories of Chicago as chief editor of the Lady's Western Magazine. This periodical, which came out for a few months in 1848, was in imitation of several "ladies' magazines" published in New York and Philadelphia. Mr. Taylor was a genuine poet, a westerner of rare genius. From the forties until after the great Chicago fire, in 1871, he wrote verses which first appeared in the literary periodicals, and also the newspapers, of