Frank Andrew Munsey: Father of the Pulp Magazines

Frank A. Munsey was an exceptional man and deserves his place in the history of American publishing. He was ambitious, energetic, creative, intelligent, self-sacrificing, egocentric, and

Frank A. Munsey

driven. He is well known for being the first to use pulpwood paper to control cost for the publication of Argosy magazine.  His legacy, however, is hardly limited to this single act.

Horatio Alger, Jr. , whose Ragged Dick stories starting in 1868 were well-known at the time that Munsey was growing up, wrote stories of boys and their “rags to riches” lives. These boys succeeded because of their perseverance, total honesty, and hard work. Munsey modeled his life on the influence of Alger’s writings. He would grow from humble origins to a highly successful life as entrepreneur and publisher.

Munsey was born to a farming family in remote Mercer, Maine in 1854. He had failed at running a General Store before becoming a telegraph operator and working his way to manager of the Western Union office in the state capital of Augusta, Maine. In Augusta, he was exposed to state legislators, businessmen, and their achievements. The publishing industry was active there, and Munsey was exposed to the influence, power, and wealth that might be realized.

Golden Argosy

In 1882, with a few hundred dollars in his pocket and a Horatio Alger, Jr. story in his dossier, Munsey moved to New York City. Less than 3 months later, he published the first edition of Golden Argosy. Of course, like most dreamers, Munsey’s path to success was hindered by reality. True to the teachings of Alger, Munsey’s frugality, hard work, intelligence, and perseverance (and perhaps even a little luck) allowed him to continue.

Golden Argosy had been aimed at boys and, although somewhat successful, would not sustain itself.  Boys don’t have money to spend on advertiser’s products and they grow up, thus the market for the magazine was naturally hindered. Munsey realized this difficulty and applied himself to overcome the challenge. In 1889 he began to publish a second periodical, Munsey’s Weekly, for adult readers.

Munsey's Weekly

Munsey’s Weekly soon had a circulation of 40,000 copies each week. Munsey, who was now enjoying some reward for his effort was not satisfied. He continued to aggressively work toward greater circulation and continued growth. He realized that to succeed his publications needed to have more than what he considered good ideas. Rather, he needed readers who purchase magazines and the products of the advertisers.

Munsey's Magazine

Golden Argosy was struggling and Munsey’s Weekly, although doing well, was not growing as it should. Munsey felt the growth in the newspaper business, specifically the Sunday editions, would ultimately be the demise of the weekly periodical business. He responded by changing Munsey’s Weekly to the monthly Munsey’s Magazine in the fall of 1891. He priced the magazine competitively at 25 cents and educated himself regarding the differences between the monthly and weekly periodicals. But, he was still not satisfied.

Munsey, Sept. 1899

He admired the Sunday newspapers because they appealed to the full breadth of the market. There was something that appealed to the young and the old, to both men and women, and from the bottom to the top of the economic strata. He wanted to change the character of the magazine. So, Munsey formulated a plan to make his magazine “light, bright, timely – a magazine of the people and for the people, with pictures and art and good cheer and human interest throughout.” The price would be dropped to ten cents in the hope of meeting the means of just about everyone who could read. The hitch in the works was distribution. The American News Company was an obstacle. It was the way that periodicals reached the dealers in this country, and they were not interested in Munsey’s idea of decreasing the price in order to increase circulation. Munsey tried to go around them and solicited directly to the dealers, but he received no response – at least not directly. The dealers, however, submitted their orders directly to American News. In the end, American News decided to make the deal with Munsey and Munsey’s Magazine sold 40,000 copies the first month, 60,000 the second month, then 100,000, and progressively increased its circulation to 700,000.

Argosy, Dec 1896

Munsey maintained that the success of Munsey’s Magazine enabled the success of his entire business. Six months later, Golden Argosy became The Argosy. In its eleven and a half years, its life had been quite precarious. Circulation had dropped from 150,000 weekly down to 9,000 while most of Munsey’s energy had been going into the Munsey’s Magazine experiment. It was now time to address his original dream.

Argosy, April 1922

The new Argosy magazine would be an all-fiction magazine. In 1896, The Argosy began publishing using cheap pulpwood paper with a better quality coated paper cover. Munsey was able to keep the price down and produce a magazine that contained 192 pages of content. Circulation began to climb steadily, and by 1903 had reached a half-million.

Munsey’s success increased after this, and by his 25^th anniversary in New York he owned 2 daily newspapers and 6 magazines – The Argosy, Munsey’s Magazine, The Scrap Book, The All-Story Magazine, and The Railroad Man’s Magazine.

Munsey died in 1925, but his publishing empire continued to operate until 1942 when it was taken over by competitor, Popular Publications. His legacy of being the first to publish with cheap pulpwood paper is really just a part of the story. He was a remarkable man who was not only entrepreneur, but also writer, editor, salesman, and promoter. Perhaps most important was his steadfast determination and empirical approach to business. His ideas of the relationship between price and circulation and the relationship to ad revenue may not have been unique to the industry but he proved the theories.