Download or read book A History of American Magazines: 1850-1865 written by Frank Luther Mott and published by . This book was released on 1930 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Introduction: An examination of American magazines and an investigation into their history show that their importance rests upon three services which they perform and which may be noted briefly here. First, they provide a democratic literature which is sometimes of high quality. The general magazine's audience must perforce be a popular one, and even the specialized periodicals whose appeal is limited to particular classes are subject to the referendum and recall of an annual subscription campaign just as the general manager is. Periodicals must keep very close to their public; they must catch the slightest nuances of popular taste. Second, the magazine has played an important part in the economics of literature. Third, periodical files furnish an invaluable contemporaneous history of their times. This fact has found increasing recognition among historians during the last forty years. The session of the American Historical Association for 1908 was devoted to a consideration of the use of periodicals in historical studies. Even the writing of literary history shows some signs in these days of catching up with the procession and recognizing the importance of social, economic, geographical, industrial, and educational factors in the development of literature. The time is happily past when biographical sketches plus criticisms of masterpieces may be accepted as literary history. --page 2-3.