Printed Word

Books

In the days before Google and Wikipedia, the library was where we went if we wanted to research something. Before Kindle and Talking Books, we entertained ourselves by reading printed novels and poems. Ink on paper was the highest form of technology available.

Magazine Cover, Saturday Evening Post - 1920 (Private Collection) And what a wonderful technology it was. Having books in the home was considered one of the hallmarks of a cultured family. Illiteracy – not being able to read or write – was a sign of sloth. If one couldn’t read, one couldn’t vote, couldn’t enjoy Dickens or Whitman, couldn’t learn about different peoples in faraway lands, couldn’t better oneself.

John Kendrick knew the value of books when it came to bettering oneself. He had only a third-grade education when he came to Wyoming in 1879. To improve himself, he kept books in his saddlebags, reading them each night by the light of the campfire. He read everything from history and science to literature and law. In 1932, when he received an honorary degree from the University of Wyoming Law School, it was estimated that he had given himself the equivalent of a Masters Degree, just through reading.

Magazines

Without computers, televisions and video games, homes – especially livings rooms – were quieter places than they are today. For the Kendricks, their Drawing Room and Library were perfect places to enjoy a little time with a book or magazine.

Before television and the Internet – even before radio – magazines shaped the lives of most Americans. Along with newspapers, magazines went into private homes and showed everyone how to dress, how to act, how to recreate, what to read, which way to vote, and how to think about literature, science, art, politics, themselves, and the world. Some of America's best new fiction first appeared – in serialized form – in national magazines.

Thousands of titles were published in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The vast majority existed for a few years and then faded from the scene as new technologies and new sources of information emerged. A few are still with us today (see below).

Established	Magazine Title
1792	Scientific American
1843	Economist
1850	Harper’s
1857	Atlantic Monthly
1859	Good Housekeeping
1867	Harper’s Bazaar
1872	Publishers’ Weekly
1872	Popular Science
1873	Forest & Stream
1883	Ladies’ Home Journal
1885	American Rifleman
1886	Cosmopolitan
1886	Sporting News
1888	National Geographic
1892	Vogue
1895	Field & Stream
1896	House Beautiful
1897	McCall’s
1898	Outdoor Life
1898	Sunset
1902	Popular Mechanics
1903	Redbook
1905	Variety
1911	Boys’ Life
1914	New Republic
1920	Architectural Digest
1922	Readers’ Digest
1922	Better Homes & Gardens
1923	Time
1925	New Yorker
1926	Parents
1931	Women’s Day
1931	Gentlemen’s Quarterly
1932	Family Circle
1933	Esquire
1933	Newsweek
1933	U. S. News & World Report