In June 1893, to compete with popular monthly periodicals such as Munsey's, which was founded as a weekly in 1889 and became a monthly in 1891, and Cosmopolitan, founded in 1886, S. S. McClure founded a new monthly, McClure's, and set the price at ten cents, forcing its rivals to lower their prices to match. (Many weeklies cost thirty-five cents.) Over the next ten years other new magazines that sold for ten or fifteen cents appeared, and by 1903 they represented about 85 percent of the total magazine circulation in America. At the turn of the century the most profitable magazines were McClure's, Munsey's, Argosy, and Cosmopolitan. While some tried lowering their prices even further, only The Saturday Evening Post, a weekly revived in 1897 by Cyrus H. K. Curtis, prospered at a nickel.

A Market Revolution.

The new monthly magazines took advantage of improved printing technologies to publish many pleasing...