526 Chapter 19 Intellectual and Cultural Trends in the Late Nineteenth Century
movement provided opportunities for thousands
seeking stimulation and intellectual improvement.
Still larger numbers profited from the proliferation
of public libraries. By the end of the century nearly all
the states supported libraries. Private donors, led by the
steel industrialist Andrew Carnegie, contributed millions
to the cause. In 1900 over 1,700 libraries in the United
States had collections of more than 5,000 volumes.
Publishers tended to be conservative, but reaching
the masses meant lowering intellectual and cultural
standards, appealing to emotions, and adopting popu-
lar, sometimes radical, causes. Cheap, mass-circulation
papers had first appeared in the 1830s and 1840s, the
most successful being the Sun, the Herald, and the
Tribunein New York; the Philadelphia Public Ledger;
and the Baltimore Sun. None of them much exceeded
a circulation of 50,000 before the Civil War. The first
publisher to reach a truly massive audience was Joseph
Pulitzer, a Hungarian-born immigrant who made a
first-rate paper of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.In 1883
Pulitzer bought the New York World, a sheet with a cir-
culation of perhaps 20,000. Within a year he was sell-
ing 100,000 copies daily, and by the late 1890s the
World’s circulation regularly exceeded 1 million.
“TheWorldis the people’s newspaper,” Pulitzer
boasted, and in the sense that it appealed to men and
women of every sort, he was correct. Pulitzer’s meth-
ods were quickly copied by competitors, especially
William Randolph Hearst, who purchased the New
York Journalin 1895 and soon outdid the Worldin
sensationalism. But no other newspaperman of the
era approached Pulitzer in originality, boldness, and
the knack of reaching the masses without abandoning
seriousness of purpose and basic integrity.
Growth and ferment also characterized the mag-
azine world. In 1865 there were about 700 maga-
zines in the country, and by the turn of the century
more than 5,000. Until the mid-1880s, few of the
new magazines were in any way unusual. A handful
of serious periodicals, such as the Atlantic Monthly,
Harper’s, and the Century, dominated the field.
They were staid in tone and conservative in politics.
Although they had great influence, none approached
mass circulation because of the limited size of the
upper-middle-class audience they aimed at.
Magazines directed at the average citizen were of
low quality. The leading publisher of this type in the
1860s and 1870s was Frank Leslie, whose periodicals
bore such titles asFrank Leslie’s Chimney Corner,
Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, and Frank
Leslie’s Jolly Joker.Leslie specialized in illustrations of
current events (he put as many as thirty-four
engravers to work on a single picture in order to
bring it out quickly) and on providing what he frankly
admitted was “mental pabulum”—a combination of
cheap romantic fiction, old-fashioned poetry, jokes,
and advice columns. Some of his magazines sold as
many as 300,000 copies per issue.
Popular magazines rarely discussed the great
issues that preoccupied intellectuals—the impact of
Darwinism on law, sociology, and anthropology; the
theories of John Dewey and the progressive educa-
tors; the import of realism in literature and art; the
implications of pragmatism to psychology, philoso-
phy, and theology. But some phenomena—such as
the mania for college football—pressed forward
because they represented so powerful a convergence
of popular culture and intellectual trends.1862 Morrill Act establishes land-grant colleges
1865 Vassar College is founded for women
1869 Charles W. Eliot becomes Harvard’s president
1874 Chautauqua movement begins
1876 Johns Hopkins University is founded to specialize
in graduate education
1881 Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. publishesThe
Common Law
Henry James publishesThe Portrait of a Lady
1883 Joseph Pulitzer purchasesNew York World
1884 Mark Twain publishesHuckleberry Finn1886 Ottmar Mergenthaler invents linotype machine
William Dean Howells becomes editor of Harper’s
1889 Edward W. Bok becomes editor of theLadies’
Home Journal
1890 William James publishesPrinciples of Psychology
1893 Frederick Jackson Turner publishes “Significance
of the Frontier in American History”
1895 William Randolph Hearst purchases the New York
Journal
1898 Charlotte Perkins Gilman publishesWomen and
Economics
1899 John Dewey publishesThe School and SocietyMilestones
Chapter Review