Circulating American Magazines: Making Lost Historical Data from the Audit Bureau of Circulations Publicly Available

FAIN: HAA-255942-17

James Madison University (Harrisonburg, VA 22807-0001)
Brooks E. Hefner (Project Director: January 2017 to October 2022)
Edward Timke (Co Project Director: May 2017 to October 2022)

Participating institutions:
James Madison University (Harrisonburg, VA) - Applicant/Recipient
Regents of the University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley, CA) - Participating Institution

The creation of web-based tools to visualize magazine circulation and readership data for historically significant magazines dated between 1880 to 1972. This will allow scholars and students to easily access information about circulation that has, to date, been “virtually invisible” due to an arcane and difficult-to-navigate cataloging system.

Although digitization has made more periodical content available to historians, literary critics, and print culture specialists, scholars remain largely in the dark about periodicals’ reach. Circulating American Magazines offers tools to analyze and visualize circulation data for historically significant magazines between 1880 and 1972. Using detailed reports from the Audit Bureau of Circulations and the advertising firm N.W. Ayer & Son, this project provides complete access to circulation numbers by issue, in addition to each title’s geographical circulation across the United States and abroad. The project offers web-based visualization tools that allow students and scholars to investigate the history of a magazine or compare multiple magazines’ readership. The project’s centralization of circulation data allows students and scholars to see American periodical history in radically new ways, describing periodicals’ development with an accuracy that has not been possible before.

Media Coverage

Back in Circulation: Combing Through a Century of Magazine Statistics (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Gwendolyn Purdom
Publication: The American Scholar
Date: 12/4/2017
Abstract: Interview for American Scholar's "Works in Progress" series.
URL: https://theamericanscholar.org/back-in-circulation/

Visualize this: Project shows U.S. magazine evolution (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Kathleen Maclay
Publication: Berkeley News
Date: 8/14/2017
URL: http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/08/14/visualize-this-project-shows-u-s-magazine-evolution/

No more digging required: Professor building tool to revolutionize magazine circulation research (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Liu, Nanfei
Publication: James Madison University News
Date: 12/1/2017
URL: https://www.jmu.edu/news/2017/12/01-Hefner-circulation-project.shtml

Mapping Movie Magazines: Digitization, Periodicals and Cinema History by Biltereyst Daniel and Lies Van de Vijver: Circulating American Magazines by Hefner Brooks E. and Edward Timke (Review)
Author(s): Mari, William
Publication: Journal of Modern Periodical Studies
Date: 7/16/2021
URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/jmodeperistud.12.2.0267

New Digital Resources for Teaching in the COVID Age (Review)
Author(s): Gleeson-White, Sarah
Publication: Australasian Journal of American Studies
Date: 7/1/2022
URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/48679665

Associated Products

“Beyond Little and Big: Circulation, Data, and American Magazine History" (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: “Beyond Little and Big: Circulation, Data, and American Magazine History"
Author: Hefner, Brooks E.
Abstract: Scholars of American periodicals in the modernist era often find themselves beset with a variety of categorizations: pulp and slick, big and little, commercial and avant-garde. Such characterizations derive from longstanding critical characterizations that have become ossified over time. Nevertheless, one of the greatest remaining unknowns in the history of American periodical culture is also among the most crucial pieces of information about magazine popularity, reach, and influence: circulation. This talk serves to introduce a new Digital Humanities project titled Circulating American Magazines, a resource that seeks to make publicly available for the first time detailed circulation information about American magazines from the 1860s through the 1970s.
Date: 10/4/2018
Primary URL: https://bigmagazines.sciencesconf.org/

"Mapping Circulation: Data and American Magazine History" (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: "Mapping Circulation: Data and American Magazine History"
Author: Hefner, Brooks E.
Author: Timke, Edward
Abstract: This presentation introduces our project, which should be well into its beta phase by the time of the conference. Our talk will highlight the source material and the potential research benefits for periodical studies scholars. We demonstrate some of the ways visualization tools might challenge or confirm long-held assumptions about magazine history as well as how circulation data can help map magazines’ reach over time.
Date: 7/26/2018
Primary URL: https://periodicalstudies.wordpress.com/2017/10/23/mapping-the-magazine-5/

Circulating American Magazines Launch Event (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Circulating American Magazines Launch Event
Abstract: This was an event celebrating the official launch of the project.
Author: Ed Timke
Author: Brooks E. Hefner
Date: 10/5/2020
Location: Online
Primary URL: https://jmu-edu.zoom.us/rec/share/Ta-GPH3JdRxpMTAvSz7KCG1lOZcrQvsllI2jUb2VmBQ_AGAY4Tspv8hoghbsjvc-.YK-21Q6p6NRpPZh2?startTime=1601928148000

Digital Methods in Periodical Studies (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: Digital Methods in Periodical Studies
Author: Ed Timke
Abstract: A presentation of the project for the National Endowment of the Humanities summer institute City of Print.
Date Range: 6/24/2020
Location: Online
Primary URL: https://vimeo.com/429335168

​“Beyond Little and Big: Circulation, Data, and American Magazine History”​ (Article)
Title: ​“Beyond Little and Big: Circulation, Data, and American Magazine History”​
Author: Brooks E. Hefner
Author: Ed Timke
Abstract: This essay expands upon a conference presentation and highlights the use of the Circulating American Magazines project using case studies of modernist-era magazines the Dial, the Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, Liberty, Harper's, and the Forum.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/jmodeperistud.11.1.0025
Access Model: Subscription
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Journal of Modern Periodical Studies
Publisher: Penn State University Press

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