American Little Magazines of the 1890s: A Revolution in Print

The 1890s witnessed the birth of the little magazine, a form associated with emerging modern art movements and alternative social and cultural trends. It flourished in Europe and especially in America. Here, hundreds of “freak magazines,” dinkeys,” “ephemerals,” or “fadazines,” as they were variously called, emerged all over the country. American little magazines were a prolific and culturally important print phenomenon – a fad that exerted its influence on broad swaths of society.

"American Little Magazines of the 1890s: A Revolution in Print" illustrates the relationship of these little magazines to the rise of mass-market periodicals; the Arts and Crafts movement and the work of William Morris; Decadence and Symbolism; and the transatlantic poster revolution that brought fame to artists including Aubrey Beardsley, Toulouse-Lautrec, Will Bradley, and Ethel Reed. While it focuses on the aesthetics of these magazines, the exhibition will also highlight their connection to the era’s major literary, cultural, and social fads and trends.

The 150 items on view are aesthetically beautiful productions, shown, for comparative purposes, alongside European counterparts and examples of the emerging cheap mass-market periodicals. Materials will be drawn from institutions such as Columbia, Princeton, the Delaware Art Museum, The Grolier Club, and from private collections.