SOURCE: Tebbel, John, and Mary Ellen Zuckerman. “Rise of the General Magazines” and “The Magazine as a Political and Cultural Influence.” In The Magazine in America: 1741-1990, pp. 8-13, 14-26. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.

In the following excerpt, Tebbel and Zuckerman highlight the ascent of general magazines in post-1825 America. The critics focus on the political impact of new periodicals such as Harper's and the Atlantic at mid-century.

Rise of the General Magazines

As the nineteenth century began, there was a new energy in the business of making magazines. Old problems remained, but they were not as frustrating as they had been, at least for the better publications. Between 1800 and 1825, there was a surge in the number of new periodicals, the first warnings of a veritable magazine tsunami between 1825 and 1850, induced by the technological breakthrough in printing with the invention of the cylinder press and the rapid...