A Magazine Cover Story

Over at the CHOLibrary today I am featuring a 1906 publication titled Magazines of a Market-metropolis: Being a History of the Literary Periodicals and Literary Interests of Chicago by Herbert Easton Fleming. Chicago's literary history is one of my favorite topics to explore, and I'm sure the recent publication of Neil Harris' book on The Chicagoan has encouraged many others, myself included, to go digging for more early magazines.

While doing a bit of surfing, I stumbled on the cover art of The Echo (pictured above)on the MagazineArt.org website. The cover is dated May 1, 1895 and the site provides the following information:

One of Will H. Bradley's covers for "Chicago's humorous and artistic fortnightly". He did a poster to advertise the magazine, and seven covers (which were also printed as posters).

The source of the cover is shown to be "collector and bibliographer Steven Lamazow" and there is a link to Mr. Lamazow's blog titled Magazine History: A Collector's Blog . Chicago magazines are just a small part of Mr. Lamazow's collection, but you will see covers from Western Monthly (an important pre-fire monthly), Outlook, The Chap-Book, Four O'Clock (featured in the Library) and, of course, The Echo. I was so impressed with his eBooks on Magazine history (check out Literature in Magazines 18th to 20th Century)that I had to pass it along. You can also tour his library and Marty Weil of Ephemera conducted an interview with this extraordinary collector. Go there now. It will blow you away.

Recommended resource:PAL: Perspectives in American Literature - A Research and Reference Guide
An Ongoing Project by Paul P. Reuben Ph.D.