Customer Reviews

Beyond the Lines: Pictorial Reporting, Everyday Life, and the Crisis of Gilded Age America

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Joshua Brown looks closely at FRANK LESLIES ILLUSTRATED WEEKLY as the paradigm of mass-market magazines in 19th century America, and his choice is apt. There's a biographical plot with a Horatio Alger twist, there's a strong and controversial woman executive, a media empire that expands and shrinks as new markets are tested and old ones abandoned, and there's the vast panoply of American cultural experience during the period from the Civil War to the 20th century. Brown's thinking is nuanced and sometimes complex; this isn't a quick read, but it's a very rewarding one. The illustrations are reason enough for most readers interested in American history.