The Rise of the Saturday Evening Post

Into the new world of national magazines catering to the average man stepped the SEP. Cyrus Curtis, who previously had started Ladies' Home Journal, bought it in 1897 intending it as a men's magazine (Peterson, p12). But because men took it home where their wives' could read it, it transcended into becoming "symbolic of the reading fare of middle-class America" (Peterson p12). To give some idea of the success the SEP would reach, in 1922, with a then-astounding average circulation of 2,187,024 readers, it took in $28,278,255 in advertising revenue (Peterson, p 12).

In 1899, Curtis gave control of the SEP to George Horace Lorimer. Curtis built the SEP on "the proposition that a man's chief interest in life is the fight for livelihood - business" (Peterson p13). Lorimer continued this heavy emphasis on business, reasoning correctly that businessmen would welcome a magazine with authoritative articles and stories about business.

Lorimer sought out famous politicians such as Grover Cleveland and authors such as Stephen Crane to write for the SEP in order to establish the magazine as a legitimate authority. In time the SEP became successful enough that simply being a staffwriter gave credibility to the magazine's authors of fiction and nonfiction.

Here is an example of some of the cover artwork and cartoons employed in the SEP

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