One of the amazing things I have discovered in this project is, that I never know where it will take me. Richard West's Old Magazines.Com is just such a place. I knew from reading Knapp obits and bios that Joseph F. Knapp strongly opposed his son Joseph P. from ever venturing into the periodical and press side of the printing industry. Well the world knows he did not heed his father's advice and soon did after his father died in 1891. In all the bios I have read on J. P. this early venture with his newly formed American Lithographic Company and the takeover of Truth Magazine in 1893 was never mentioned until I found Richard West.

Of particular interest to me was the manner in which Truth was acquired that strongly suggests partner James "Buck" Duke's fingerprints and the comments on printing quality & method of management that has Joseph Palmer's style all over it and would be a blueprint for the way he ran Collier's and other magazines in the 20th century.

The HISTORY page of the Periodyssey website is devoted to disseminating information on magazines that for one reason or another have been neglected in the standard references. Anyone seriously interested in magazine history will find Frank Luther Mott's five-volume History of American Magazines (Harvard University Press 1930-1968) an indispensable survey of the field. A valuable addendum to Mott is Theodore Peterson's Magazines in the Twentieth Century (University of Illinois, 1964).

All of the following essays have been written by Richard Samuel West, unless otherwise identified. They have been posted here for the edification of magazine scholars and collectors. They are copyrighted by Periodyssey and can only be reprinted with permission. We will be adding new information to this page and revising standing essays periodically. Please check back regularly.