The Early History of Magazines

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COLONIAL MAGAZINES The first issue of Benjamin Franklin’s General Magazine and Historical Chronicle appeared in January 1741. While it lasted only six months, Franklin found success in other publications, like his annual Poor Richard’s Almanac, starting in 1732 and lasting twenty-five years.

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The first magazines appeared in seventeenth-century France in the form of bookseller catalogues and notices that book publishers inserted in newspapers. In fact, the word magazine derives from the French term magasin, meaning “storehouse.” The earliest magazines were “storehouses” of writing and reports taken mostly from newspapers. Today, the word magazine broadly refers to collections of articles, stories, and advertisements appearing in nondaily (such as weekly or monthly) periodicals that are published in the smaller tabloid style rather than the larger broadsheet newspaper style.