Youth's Companion

"The Youth's Companion" (1827-1929) was an American children's magazine. It was published for over one hundred years until it finally merged with "American Boy" in 1929.

Early issues of the "Companion" were centered around religion, having been created, in the words of its first publishers Nathaniel Willis (father of Nathaniel Parker Willis) and Asa Rand, to encourage "virtue and piety, and ... warn against the ways of transgression". In its early years its circulation did not reach 5,000.

In the 1890s its content was recentered around entertainment, and it began to target adults as well as children with pieces contributed by writers such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson, Booker T. Washington, and Jack London. Another innovation was a medical column for older readers. In consequence, its circulation increased one-hundredfold, with sales peaking in 1893. It was advertised in 1897 as "an Illustrated Family Paper," having, as one person said of it, it done "away with childish things." It did, however, retain a children's section, which included short poems and puzzles, and in faith to its beginnings, however, "The Youth's Companion" did not mention drugs or alcohol, nor did it delve much into politics; when it did, it usually did so in a humorous way.

From 1892 onward the magazine promoted the Pledge of Allegiance, which had been written by staff member Francis Bellamy.

External links

* http://history.vineyard.net/pdgech2.htm
* [http://www.miragebookmark.ch/Youth's-Companion.htm The Youth's Companion - an advertising bookmark of the newspaper from 1902]
* [http://youthscompanion.com The Youth's Companion Project]