Item #7156 Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. First Texas Edition.
Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. First Texas Edition.
Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. First Texas Edition.
Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. First Texas Edition.
Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. First Texas Edition.
Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. First Texas Edition.

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Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. First Texas Edition.

New York: For the Week Ending September 27, 1890. No. 1828.—Vol. LXXI. Supplement. Folio newspaper, 16.5” x 11.25”. 16 pp. CONDITION: Good, folded in half, 2.5” tear at fold affecting all leaves, some fraying at edges,light damp-stains.

A scarce supplement to An Empire Illustrated, a special issue of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, intended at least in part to promote real estate investment in Texas.

This supplement consists mainly of an article entitled “The Lone Star State”—a narrative of a two months’ trip through Texas taken by representatives of Frank Leslie’s Newspaper and other journals. The state is described here as “the most prosperous and promising” in the Union: “Capital always searches out the best opportunities, and in Texas the money of New England and New York, and even of the West, has within recent years found the choicest investments and the most satisfactory profits.” On 19 May 1890, the Frank Leslie Palace Car Mayflower”(illustrated on page one on its Texas tour) left Chicago for Texas on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad. The members of the Mayflower party were Russell B. Harrison (part proprietor of Frank Leslie’s Illus. Newspaper), Truman G. Palmer (manager of its Western Dept. and manager of the tour), editor John A. Sleicher, artist George E. Burr, Theron P. Keator (of Northern and Eastern Dailies), Henry Ertle (of 4,200 Eastern and Western weekly newspapers), J.C. Daniels (of the Helena Journal) Roy Keator (Northern and Eastern Dailies), and secretary L. Tillotson. The party’s object was to “visit the state from end to end and gather material for illustrating and describing its present condition…After several pleasant stops at various cities en route, and passing through the newly developed Indian Territory, via the direct line of the Santa Fé Route, we entered the State on the morning of May 26th, and our first stop was at Gainesville.”

Other stops described include Dallas, Fort Worth, Sherman, Corsicana, Waco, and Corpus Christi, with emphasis on the real estate prospects in each locale. Readers are advised when visiting Houston to call on Thomas, Bright & Co., described as “Wide-Awake real estate men of that rapidly growing city, who will gladly show you the city, its advantages, and their list of investments. They pay taxes, sell and buy property for non-residents anywhere in Texas.” Those unable to physically visit are advised to send for a map. The back-cover features articles on Denison, TX as a Bessemer steel center and businessman W. P. Rice.

Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper (est. 1855) was the first successful pictorial newspaper in America. Before immigrating to the U.S. in 1848, Leslie (born Henry Carter) worked in the engraving department of the London Illustrated News, a publication that served as the template for the commercial illustrated press in America. After emigrating to the U.S., Leslie worked at several newspapers before publishing the first issue of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper in 1855. Leslie’s found a stable readership through the paper’s extensive nonpartisan coverage of John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry and its aftermath. By 1860 Leslie’s enjoyed a circulation of 164,000. After the attack of Fort Sumter, the paper switched to a pro-Union stance and found a wider audience in the Northern populace. After Leslie's death in 1880, the magazine was continued by his widow, Miriam F. Leslie, running until 1922.

WorldCat notes two copies of An Empire Illustrated which include the Texas supplement, at the Autry Museum of the American West and Yale.

REFERENCES: “Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper,” The News Media and the Making of America, 1730-1865 at americanantiquarian.org.

Item #7156

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