Publishers, G. P. Putnam and Co., New York. Putnam’s Monthly Magazine of American literature, science, and art. Established by George P. Putnam with the assistance of George William Curtis and others. In 1857 merged into Emerson’s United States Magazine, which was continued as Emerson’s Magazine and Putnam’s Monthly. Discontinued November, 1858. January, 1868-November, 1870, Putnam’s Monthly Magazine. Original papers on literature, science, art, and national interests. Merged into Scribner’s Monthly, December, 1870. October, 1906-March, 1910, reëstablished and merged with the Critic, founded in 1881; issued by Messrs. Putnam since 1898. An illustrated monthly of literature, art, and life. Absorbed the Reader, March, 1908. Titles vary during this period. A large number of full-page and smaller illustrations. One serial running, small proportion of verse, special articles, comments, and criticisms on literature and the fine arts, science, travel, statesmanship. Alternating emphasis with successive issues on the different arts. Typical contributors and contributions, with illustrations concerning: Lafcadio Hearn, Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, Stedman, Stoddard, Henry James, Longfellow, Franklin, Margaret Deland, Maeterlinck, Thomas Edison, Binet, Corot, Helen Keller, Nazimova, Gladstone, the Bonapartes. Absorbed by the Atlantic Monthly, April, 1910.
Round Table, The, 1864–1869. A New York monthly.
A literary journal founded in New York in emulation of Boston’s Atlantic and supported with great interest by Aldrich, Stedman, Bayard Taylor, and their circle. It was suspended during parts of 1864–1865 and discontinued in July, 1869, in spite of the efforts to secure a subsidy for it from the wealthy men of New York.
Russell’s Magazine, 1857–1860. A Charleston monthly.
Founded by John Russell, Charleston bookseller, with Paul Hamilton Hayne as editor. A monthly periodical for the literary group centering around William Gilmore Simms. Contained fiction, sketches, addresses, reviews, and essays on various topics—political, historical, literary, artistic, scientific. These were mainly unsigned, but the leading contributors were Simms, Hayne, Timrod, James L. Petigru, John D. Bruns, and Basil Gildersleeve. With the approach of the Civil War it was discontinued March, 1860. (Lives of P. H. Hayne and W. G. Simms. Three Notable Ante-Bellum Magazines of South Carolina, Sidney J. Cohen, University of South Carolina, Bulletin 42.) Saturday Evening Post, The, 1821——. A Philadelphia weekly.
A lineal descendant of Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette(see p. 496). It was given its present name in 1821 when Samuel C. Atkinson and Charles Alexander took control, Atkinson being the surviving partner of David Hall, grandson and namesake of Franklin’s partner to whom the Gazette was sold in 1765. In one hundred and eighty years the only interruption to consecutive issues was during the British occupation of Philadelphia. The Post of recent years has been one of the American weeklies of largest circulation. It contains fiction, up-to-date personalia, and brisk articles on the affairs of the moment. Its attitude toward thrift, industry, and the way to wealth is completely consistent with the ethics of Franklin. It is conducted by the Curtis Publishing Company and edited by George H. Lorimer.
Saturday Press, The, 1858–1860. A New York weekly.
The special organ of the “Bohemians”—a group of New Yorkers who acknowledged Henry M. Clapp as their leader. Other contributors were Fitz-James O’Brien, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, R. H. Stoddard, William Winter, and E. C. Stedman, The Press was brilliant but short-lived, announcing in its last number in early 1860 that it was “discontinued for lack of funds which [was], by a coincidence, precisely the reason for which it was started.” (See H. M. Clapp in Winter’s “Other Days,” and “The Life of Stedman,” by Stedman and Gould.)
Scribner’s Magazine, 1886——. A New York monthly.
Founded December, 1886, by Messrs. Scribner (entirely distinct from old Scribner’s Monthly), with E. L. Burlingame as editor. Illustrated. Typical contributors, in the early years: H. C. Bunner, Joel Chandler Harris, Sarah Orne Jewett, Barrett Wendell, E. H. Blashford, Richard Henry Stoddard, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, T. W. Higginson, W. C. Brownell, Charles Edwin Markham, Robert Louis Stevenson; in recent years: Winston Churchill, J. L. Laughlin, W. C. Brownell, Meredith Nicholson, John Galsworthy, etc. Articles of popular interest on art, music, nature, travel, and since 1914 a section given to the World War. Aim and policy unchanged.