In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

119 6 Engravings from Original Pictures” COMPETING FOR AUDIENCES AND ORIGINAL ART In the “Editors’ Table” for the May 1844 of his magazine, Louis Godey features a letter from a reader who complains: “The great objection to the Monthlies of Chestnut Street is their plates. Each has generally thirty-six plates a year— women and children. Now these may be scarce on Chestnut Street, but they are not so here.” This astute reader alludes to the fact that all the major Philadelphia illustrated periodicals emanated from publishing houses located on Chestnut Street, within a stone’s throw of each other, and all run by male editors and publishers (hence the quip about the absence of women and children on Chestnut Street).1 In fact, Edgar Allan Poe is said to have famously complained that if one were to remove the covers from these magazines, one could not distinguish between them because all relied on the same authors and the same embellishers (Mott, I, 352). While Poe and the reader were right that Godey, Graham, and Peterson relied on many of the same authors and embellishers, and featured a preponderance of images of women and children in their magazines, they both missed the subtle differences between the artistic matter in these magazines, and what those differences reveal about imagined audiences. The reader continues: “Now, can’t you throw in a little variety—say a loafer, a bank director, a starved poet, an omnibus boy, or a cab driver, or any thing that is not common in the West?” This reader’s request for images of urban male figures highlights several important facts. Firstly, although Godey prided himself on creating a magazine targeting his “fair readers,” men clearly read (and generally paid the subscription fees for) these magazines. “ 120 COMPETING FOR AUDIENCES AND ORIGINAL ART This male reader felt entitled to request images in keeping with his own interests . Secondly, this letter points to the fact that, by mid-decade, the illustrated monthlies reached readers far distant from the Eastern Seaboard cities of the magazines’ origins, and that these readers were hungry for images of American life in the distant cities. This male reader, and likely many others receiving these magazines in the rural areas where the bulk of the nation’s population still lived, relied on these magazines both to learn about life in the cities, and to learn about American art. In responding, Godey “pleads guilty” to the preponderance of images of women and children, but argues that his selection of embellishments has improved. He queries: “Have we not given scriptural, historical and Shakespearean subjects? Have we not published match plates illustrative of virtue and vice; views of celebrated places; engravings from original pictures & c.?” It is evident from Godey’s response to this reader—a response Godey published prominently in the editorial space of his magazine—that Godey is concerned about the breadth of subject matter given in his embellishments. Beyond this, Godey’s response provides evidence of his continuing concern with the reputation of his magazine in the promotion of American art—he stresses that his magazine has given “engravings from original pictures.” Most scholars who have consulted the images in these magazines have made much the same mistake that Godey’s reader made—focusing solely on the sentimental images of women and children in the illustrated periodicals , at the expense of the rest of the artwork in the magazines.2 While the illustrated monthlies did serve up fashion plates and idealized mother/child images, they also featured original American art, commissioned specifically for the periodicals, and circulated this artwork more widely than was possible via any other medium. As noted in chapter 3, competition between publishers early in the decade focused on artwork that utilized novel or innovative printing techniques. But with the vanquishing of Miss Leslie’s at the end of 1843, the “big three”—Godey’s, Graham’s, and Peterson’s—shifted their focus to securing original artwork executed by American painters, on American themes, and prepared primarily by prominent Philadelphia engravers. In particular, these publishers commissioned for exclusive publication in these magazines original American landscapes, historical paintings, illustrations of Native Americans, fancy pictures, and idealized female portraiture. Although they competed for the services of the same artists and embellishers , a careful examination of these specific genres of art engravings in each magazine proves Poe wrong. Each publisher seems to have imagined a slightly [18.218.168.16] Project MUSE (2024-04...

Share