Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/423

 THE LITERARY INTERESTS OF CHICAGO 47

sparkling, illustrated magazine for boys and girls, and older people with young hearts, containing thirty-two pages of illus- trations and reading matter best calculated to amuse and instruct the young." This advertisement, with its tone of commonness, has a meaning for this essay. It helps to show the range of inter- est people have in literary productions, from the classic to the common. In these juveniles we readily see one tendency toward the development of the " family-story " periodical a type which not long after this period became well known to the printing trade.

Another part of this " family-story " line of specialization appeared in the periodicals for adults. Back in the prairie period some of the pioneer publishers of general literary-miscellany periodicals had called attention to the "family reading" in their columns, and had emphasized the special interest it had for families in homes on the farms. But in 1868 home papers with home titles made their first appearance. The Home Eclectic came out, and continued monthly until 1870, acquiring only a small constituency. The Chicago Western Home also was started, secured 20,000 subscribers by 1870, and disappeared in the dis- aster of 1871. In 1869, A. N. Kellogg, the inventor of "patent insides," the printed sheets sent to country newspapers for com- pletion with local items, founded the Evening Lamp. This is a large co-operative newspaper, printed from the best plate-matter of the A. N. Kellogg Newspaper Co. It is filled with serials, stories, sketches, and miscellaneous matter of interest and of fair quality. It is sent out weekly to this day. Three other family fireside papers were started in time to be burned out by the fire.

Chicago's famous holocaust destroyed the files of some maga- zines and journals from the earlier period, and a majority of those originated after the war. Many periodicals lived only long enough for their names to be put into the newspaper directories published in New York and Philadelphia. This is true concern- ing not a few of the 306 in the bibliography of literary publica- tions attempted in Chicago up to 1905, compiled during the course of investigation for these papers. The newspaper annuals are the one source of information about them. And at least one such directory for every year since the first was brought out, has been