A Chronicle of Magazine Covers (2) 1800-1810

The magazines published in the first decade of the nineteeth century are not particularly interesting from a graphic standpoint. The most important magazine, Joseph Dennie's (aka Oliver Oldschool) Portfolio was a quatro, issued without wrappers until 1806, publishing the first American fashion plate in 1809. The opening article is by John Quincy Adams!

As printing expanded west, the technology of engraving was delayed in following. The first thespian magazines appear. The Apollo is the very rare first magazine printed in Delaware.

Of all, the cover of The Ordeal is the most ornate.

Literary Miscellany is the first of many magazines to be printed at Harvard.

In this decade, forty cities in fifteen states and the District of Columbia accounted for 139 different magazines. My collection has examples of well over half the titles. The best reference is the doctoral thesis of Benjamin M. Lewis from the University of Michigan, republished in a 77 page pamphlet in 1959. Here is one page from this authoritarian work.