Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/518

 502 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

Ledger took on that more thrilling tone which is retained by those appearing in the current issues of 1906. Although selected by an editor who is the author of contributions accepted by high-grade magazines, their form is unfinished. The contents, however, are not of an immoral tone. In fact, the stories, like the melodramas of the cheap theater, often point a moral, with a not harmful effect.

The motto of the W. D. Boyce Co., the present publishers, as stated by Colonel William C. Hunter, the secretary and active manager of the Chicago Ledger, is : "The higher the fewer." In more positive terms it might be put : "The lower the more." At any rate, this paper, listed in the newspaper annuals as "literary," has, according to their figures, since 1900 enjoyed a regular circulation of nearly 300,000 a week. For "Boyce's Weeklies" the Chicago Ledger and the Saturday Blade, a weekly imitation of a metropolitan daily an average circulation of 631,869 copies is claimed; and for the Woman's World, a monthly which has grown out of the success of the Ledger, 829,982 copies. Although but few f the residents of Chicago have ever heard of these periodicals, these figures show the banner circulation of "literary" periodical publishing in Chicago. It was not until in 1891 that Mr. Boyce acquired the Chicago Ledger. Since then its growth has been remarkable. It is the basis of success with a paper mill and a city office building, which fact, like many of the points already made in this series of papers, again shows the engraftment of interests.

In "the trade" such periodicals as the Chicago Ledger have come to be more commonly called "mail-order" papers than "family-story" papers. It is thus recognized that they are run primarily for revenue. With the development of houses selling all kinds of goods direct to people in country homes, on orders by mail, the Chicago Ledger and the "mail- order" papers have been used for advertising by such firms. These mail-order houses, of which the original, that of Montgomery Ward & Co., started during the same year as the Chicago Ledger, in 1872, were among the new ventures in the period of enterprise after the fire. Their proprietors wanted to reach the country popu-