Munsey's Magazine

St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture, Jan 29, 2002 by Richard Digby-Junger

Munsey's Magazine and its publisher's empire declined after 1907, more so after Roosevelt's defeat in 1912. Munsey's set a then record of 265 pages in one 1918 issue. The magazine became an all-fiction pulp in 1921 but never achieved the circulation it had known in its earlier years. When he wasn't merging or killing off publications, Munsey would make impossible demands such as ordering politically unpleasant information withheld, firing entire editorial departments, eliminating pages or sections, or punishing uncooperative employees. He paid $4 million for the New York Herald in 1920 in part so he could fire the paper's editorial cartoonist for an unflattering drawing of Munsey in 1916. He never married, had no family, lived most of his life alone in hotels, and claimed he did not care for money except for what he could accomplish with it.

Munsey died of appendicitis on December 12, 1925. Other great publishers founded schools of journalism or at least insisted that their publications carry on after their death. Munsey ordered that all of his properties, magazines and newspapers included, be sold for cash although much of the profits were used to found New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ironically, its new publisher combined Munsey's Magazine with Argosy All-Story in October 1929, eventually dropping the Munsey name altogether. Meanwhile, Munsey, the founder of mass media and the precursor of the Information Age, was eulogized by journalist William Allen White as such: "Frank Munsey contributed to the journalism of his day the talent of a meat packer, the morals of a money changer, and the manners of an undertaker. He and his kind have about succeeded in transforming a once-noble profession into an eight percent security. May he rest in trust!"