Frank Munsey

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Frank Andrew Munsey (21 August 1854 – 22 December 1925) was an American newspaper and magazine publisher and author. He was born in Mercer, Maine but spent most of his life in New York City. Munsey Park, New York is named for him.

Munsey is credited with the idea of using new high-speed printing presses to print on inexpensive, untrimmed, pulp paper to mass produce affordable (typically ten cent) magazines, chiefly filled with various genres of action and adventure fiction and targeted at working-class people, who could not afford and were not interested in the content of, the twenty-five cent "slick" magazines of the time. This innovation, known as pulp magazines, became an entire industry unto itself and made him quite wealthy. Munsey often closed down or changed the content of magazines when they became unprofitable, quickly starting new ones in their place.

Flynn's Detective Fiction from 1941, one of the magazines published by Frank A. Munsey Co. long after his death.
Flynn's Detective Fiction from 1941, one of the magazines published by Frank A. Munsey Co. long after his death.

Contents

[edit] Beginnings

Early in life Munsey ran a general store, at which he failed. He then became a telegraph operator, and then manager of the Augusta, Maine Western Union telegraph office. Munsey was very ambitious, and being in charge of the telegraph office, a vital connection for the news media of the time, gave him an awareness of the publishing industry, particularly as it was also a sizable industry in Augusta at the time.

In 1882 he moved from Augusta to New York City to enter the publishing industry, having used his savings to purchase rights to several stories and arranged to form a partnership with a friend in New York and an Augusta stock broker. Despite the stock broker backing out after he arrived in New York, and his releasing his friend from any obligations, by pitching the magazine to a New York publisher and being hired as editor, Munsey managed to publish the first issue of his magazine Golden Argosy only two months and nine days after his arrival.

Five months later, the publisher went bankrupt and entered receivership. By staking a claim for his unpaid salary, Munsey was able to take control of the magazine. Borrowing $300 from a friend in Maine, he managed, barely, to keep the magazine going while learning enough about the publishing industry to succeed.

[edit] Publications

Golden Argosy was a weekly "boys adventure" magazine in a dime novel format, with a mix of both articles and fiction. After a few years, Munsey realized that targeting a young audience had been a mistake, as they were hard readers to retain since they rapidly grew out of the publication, and since children of the time had very little spending money, advertisers were not interested in a publication which targeted them. In 1888, the name was changed to The Argosy to begin attracting an older audience, in 1894 it became a monthly, designed to complement Munsey's Magazine, and in December 1896 it became the first true pulp, switching to an all-fiction format of 192 pages on seven by ten inch untrimmed pulp paper, and being renamed Argosy Magazine. By 1903, circulation was about half a million copies per month.

In 1889 he founded Munsey's Weekly, a 36-page quarto magazine, designed to be "a magazine of the people and for the people, with pictures and art and good cheer and human interest throughout".[1] It was a success, soon selling 40,000 copies per week. In 1891 the magazine became a monthly, Munsey's Magazine, in 1892 the magazine began to include a "complete novel" in every issue, and in 1893 the price was dropped to ten cents per issue. By 1895 circulation was over half a million copies per month, by 1897, seven hundred thousand copies per month.

Munsey was very active in the newspaper industry, at one time or another owning at least seventeen different newspapers. As the number of newspapers in America declined, Munsey became known for merging many of his properties; though probably financially wise, this earned him a great deal of enmity from those who worked in the industry. His papers included:

The sale of the Herald in 1924 left Munsey owning only two newspapers.[2] The Evening Telegram was sold to Scripps-Howard in 1927, some time after Munsey's death.

Other Munsey pulps and magazines included Puritan, Junior Munsey, All-Story Magazine, Scrap Book, Cavalier, Railroad, and Current Mechanics.

Munsey also authored several novels:

  • Afloat in a Great City (1887)
  • The Boy Broker (1888)
  • A Tragedy of Errors (1889)
  • Under Fire (1890)
  • Derringforth (1894)

[edit] Politics

Munsey became directly involved in presidential politics when former President Theodore Roosevelt announced his candidacy to challenge his hand-picked successor William Taft for the 1912 Republican Party nomination for the presidency. Munsey and George W. Perkins provided the financial backing for Roosevelt's campaign leading up to the Republican National Convention in Chicago. When Roosevelt supporters bolted from the convention, Munsey was one of the most outspoken critics of the proceedings and announced that Roosevelt would run at the head of a new party. His encouragement and offer of financial backing led to the formation of the Progressive Party, which nominated Roosevelt for president. Munsey was one of its most ardent supporters and one of the largest contributors to its campaign expenses.[3]

[edit] Demise and legacy

Munsey died in New York City in 1925 of a burst appendix at age 67. He left his money, about forty million dollars, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, located in New York. None of his money went to the his remaining family, who currently reside in Manchester, New Hampshire.[citation needed]

After his death, the Frank A. Munsey Company continued on publishing various magazines, including pulp detective fiction, such as (Flynn's) Detective Fiction and All-Story Love. In 1942 they sold out to rival pulp publisher Popular Publications.

The village of Munsey Park, New York was founded on land owned by Munsey in 1922.

[edit] References

  • Chace, James. 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft & Debs — The Election That Changed the Country. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004. ISBN 0-7432-0394-1
  • Haining, Peter. The Fabulous Pulps. Vintage Books (a division of Random House), 1975. ISBN 0-394-72109-8

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ [1]
  2. ^ Time Magazine, March 24, 1924
  3. ^ New International Encyclopedia

[edit] External links


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