Onward: How a Regional Temperance Magazine for Children Survived and Flourished in the Victorian Marketplace

This paper explores the purpose, use, and content of nineteenth-century children’s temperance magazines, using Onward as a case study. Technological developments and the influence of competing publications led the magazine to transform its content, typography, format, and size over a forty year period. What began as a regional title ultimately reached a national circulation of 250,000. It achieved this success while pursuing two priorities: integrating readers into the temperance movement and creating a competitive brand of juvenile magazine.