Robert S. Coffin, who had written popular verses under the name of the "Boston Bard" while a compositor in the office of the Village Record, at West Chester, Pa., came to Philadelphia in 1821 and began a literary paper, which he called the Bee. Not more than two hundred subscribers were secured, and Coffin sold the unsuccessful paper to Charles Alexander, who had formerly been employed upon Poulson's Daily Advertiser. On the 4th of August, 1821, Atkinson and Alexander, in the office once occupied by Benjamin Franklin, back of No. 53 Market Street, began the publication of the Philadelphia Saturday Evening Post. T. Cottrell Clarke was appointed editor. He retired in 1826 and founded the Ladies' Album, a weekly literary paper, which ultimately merged into the Pennsylvania Inquirer. Morton McMichael succeeded Clarke in the editorial chair of the Post, and, when he too resigned, became the first editor of the Saturday Courier. Other editors of the Post at various times were Benjamin Mathias, founder of the Saturday Chronicle, Charles J. Peterson, Rufus W. Griswold, H. Hastings Weld and Henry Peterson. The Post had few important rivals among the family newspapers and it absorbed a number of the young literary journals. The Saturday News, the Saturday Bulletin and the Saturday Chronicle were merged into the Post. Mrs. Henry Wood's early novels, written in her obscure days before the time of "East Lynne," were published in it.
The Episcopal Recorder, established in 1822, and edited by Rev. B. B. Smith, Bishop of the P. E. Church in the United States, has always admitted into its pages articles by leading clergymen of whatever sect or creed.
The Erin, a weekly paper containing Irish news, was published in August, 1822, by Hart & Co., No. 117 South Fifth Street.
Rev. G. T. Bedell, who had established the Episcopal Recorder, was also the editor of the Philadelphia Recorder (1823), likewise a religious weekly published in the interest of the Protestant Episcopal Church.
The Arcadian, a literary periodical, of the year 1823, was published by A. Potter and Co.
The American Monthly Magazine, January, 1824, to June, 1824, was edited by James McHenry and published by Job Palmer.
The Medical Review and Analectic Journal was edited by Dr. John Eberle and Dr. George McClellan and published quarterly between June, 1824, and August, 1826.
The Æsculapian Register was published from June 17, 1824, to December 8, 1834. Several physicians united in its editorship, and R. Desilver, of 110 Walnut Street, was its publisher; its motto: "Ars longa, vita brevis."
The American Sunday School Magazine (1824-1831) was the first Sunday-school-teacher's journal issued in America.
La Corbeille, a weekly journal published in 1824. The editor was a gallant Cavalier, who warns the ladies in the first number that novel reading "induces a sickly diathesis of the mind, or mental marasmus."