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In 1870, about twelve hundred magazines were produced in the United States; by 1890, that number reached forty-five hundred. By 1905, the nation boasted more than six thousand magazines. Part of this surge in titles and readership was facilitated by the Postal Act of 1879, which had assigned magazines lower postage rates—putting them on an equal footing with newspapers delivered by mail. This vastly reduced distribution costs. Meanwhile, advances in mass-production printing, conveyor systems, assembly lines, and printing-press speeds lowered production costs and made large-circulation national magazines possible.¹

This combination of reduced distribution and production costs enabled publishers to slash magazine prices. As prices dropped from thirty-five cents to fifteen and then to ten cents, people of modest means began subscribing to national publications. Magazine circulation skyrocketed, attracting new waves of advertising revenues. Even though publishers had dropped the price of an issue below the actual cost to produce a single copy, they recouped the loss through ad revenue—guaranteeing large readerships to advertisers eager to reach more customers. By the turn of the twentieth century, advertisers increasingly used national magazines to capture consumers’ attention and build a national marketplace.