Electrician and Mechanic
Encyclopedia
Popular Science
Popular Science is an American monthly magazine founded in 1872 carrying articles for the general reader on science and technology subjects. Popular Science has won over 58 awards, including the ASME awards for its journalistic excellence in both 2003 and 2004...
and the magazine is still published under that name today.
Origin
Bubier's Popular Electrician (founded 1890) was acquired by Frank R. Fraprie and the newly formed Sampson Publishing Company in May 1906. The name was changed to Electrician & Mechanic with the July issue. The editors were Frank Fraprie, Arthur Eugene Watson and Mary Otis Sampson. Sampson was also the treasurer and director of the publishing company. (Fraprie and Sampson were married in 1911.)By 1912, Electrician and Mechanic had absorbed three other magazines; Amateur Work, Building Craft and Collins Wireless Bulletin. The magazine typically had about 100 pages and each issue covered a wide variety of topics in electricity, wireless radio, machining, mechanical drawing, wood working and chemistry. There were articles for radio technicians such as "The Calculation of Inductance" that details how to design and wind coils for a wireless telegraphy
Wireless telegraphy
Wireless telegraphy is a historical term used today to apply to early radio telegraph communications techniques and practices, particularly those used during the first three decades of radio before the term radio came into use....
set. A skilled machinist might read about "The Production of Accurate Screw-Threads in a Lathe". There were also articles for the hobbyist readers. Woodworkers could find plans for an armchair or a simple letter box.
Mergers
Hugo Gernsback
Hugo Gernsback , born Hugo Gernsbacher, was a Luxembourgian American inventor, writer, editor, and magazine publisher, best remembered for publications that included the first science fiction magazine. His contributions to the genre as publisher were so significant that, along with H. G...
's Electro Importing Company catalogs had elaborate instructions on how to use the electrical and radio parts they sold. These catalogs spawned Modern Electrics
Modern Electrics
Modern Electrics was a technical magazine for the amateur radio experimenter. It was created by Hugo Gernsback and began publication in April 1908. The magazine was initially intended to provide mail-order information for radio parts and to promote the amateur radio hobby, but it later became a...
in April 1908 and the magazine had over 100,000 readers by 1911. In March 1913, Gernsback sold the magazine and the Modern Publishing Company to his business partner, Orland Ridenour. Modern Publishing acquired Electrician and Mechanic and merged it with Modern Electrics. The new magazine, Modern Electrics and Mechanics, was published from January 1914 to June 1914. Gernsback started a new magazine, The Electrical Experimenter
Electrical Experimenter
The Electrical Experimenter was a technical science magazine that was published monthly. It was first published in May 1913, as the successor to Modern Electrics, a combination of a magazine and mail-order catalog that had been published by Hugo Gernsback starting in 1908...
, in May 1913.
Popular Electricity Publishing of Chicago merged Popular Electricity in Plain English (founded May 1908) with World's Advance in September 1913. Modern Publishing acquired Popular Electricity and World's Advance and combined it with Modern Electrics and Mechanics in July 1914. The new magazine was Popular Electricity and Modern Mechanics but it soon changed the title to Modern Mechanics and was World's Advance by April 1915.
The numerous title changes were a topic of discussion in library journals of the time. Libraries would have individual magazines bound into books. A typical size magazine would be bound into volumes every six months, magazine publishers would normally change titles or merge magazines on these volume boundaries. This was not the case with Modern Publishing. The following editorial appeared in the April 1915 Bulletin of Bibliography.
The World's Advance is a new title in magazinedom, and April 1915, is the initial number. Oh, no, not a new magazine, it is vol. 30, number 4; it was Modern Mechanics recently, and back of that — but let it tell its own story of absorptions, marriages, serial-cannibalism or whatever you may call its checkered life hitherto. The World's Advance, formerly Modern Mechanics, with which is combined Popular Electricity and The World's Advance, Modern Electrics and Mechanics, Electrician and Mechanic, is the outgrowth of a number of consolidated magazines. First was Popular Electrician founded in Lynn, Mass., in 1890, taken over later by Electrician and Mechanic, Boston. This absorbed Amateur Work, and Building Craft and in January 1914, was itself merged in Modern Electrics of New York, and called Modern Electrics and Mechanics. Then Popular Electricity and the World's Advance of Chicago was combined with it under the name of Popular Electricity and Modern Mechanics. This name being too long Modern Mechanics was decided upon for the new name, but this being found liable to confusion with a similar periodical [called Popular Mechanics], the name World's Advance was adopted." Some pedigree! But it's now a capital magazine for those of a mechanical turn of mind, and is profusely illustrated.
World's Advance had a readership of 135,000 "men" by 1915. A notice in a trade publication for advertisers stated, "72% of its readers are over 21 years old and it is exclusively a man's publication without waste circulation among women and children."
Popular Science Monthly
Edward L. Youmans
Edward Livingston Youmans was an American scientific writer, editor, and lecturer and founder of Popular Science magazine.-Biography:...
. It was a science and technology magazine equivalent to Scientific American
Scientific American
Scientific American is a popular science magazine. It is notable for its long history of presenting science monthly to an educated but not necessarily scientific public, through its careful attention to the clarity of its text as well as the quality of its specially commissioned color graphics...
or Science
Science (journal)
Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is one of the world's top scientific journals....
. James McKeen Cattell
James McKeen Cattell
James McKeen Cattell , American psychologist, was the first professor of psychology in the United States at the University of Pennsylvania and long-time editor and publisher of scientific journals and publications, most notably the journal Science...
became the editor in 1900 and the publisher in 1901. Cattell had a background in academics and continued publishing articles for educated readers. By 1915 the readership was declining and publishing a science journal was a financial challenge. In a September 1915 editorial, Cattell related these difficulties to his readers and that the journal had been "transferred" to a group that wanted the name for a general audience magazine. Next month the subscribers would be receive a new journal titled Scientific Monthly
Scientific monthly
Scientific Monthly was a science magazine published from 1915 to 1957. Psychologist James McKeen Cattell was the original founder and editor. In 1957 Scientific Monthly was absorbed by Science....
that would continue the academic tradition. Scientific Monthly was published until 1958 when it was absorbed into Science.
The new owners were Henry Fisher, Robert Wilson and Oliver Capen of Modern Publishing. The October 1915 issue was titled Popular Science Monthly and World's Advance. The volume number (Vol. 87, No. 4) was that of Popular Science but the content was that of World's Advance. The new editor was Waldemar Kaempffert
Waldemar Kaempffert
Waldemar Kaempffert was a US science writer and museum director.Waldemar Kaempffert was born and raised in New York City. He received his B.S. from the City College of New York in 1897. Thereafter he was employed by Scientific American, first as a translator , then as managing editor...
, a former editor of Scientific American
The change in Popular Science Monthly was dramatic. The old version was a scholarly journal that had eight to ten articles in a 100 page issue. There would be ten to twenty photographs or illustrations. The new version had hundreds of short, easy to read articles with hundreds of illustrations. Editor Kaembffert was writing for "the home craftsman and hobbyist who wanted to know something about the world of science." The circulation doubled in the first year.
Popular Science Monthly was two different magazines for during the last half of 1915 and this presented a dilemma for librarians who needed to have them bound into book volumes. The library journal, Bulletin of Bibliography, printed the conflicting recommendations received from the new and old publishers. The journal editor promised to publish a "list of librarians and book-binders who have gone to Battle Creek
Battle Creek Sanitarium
The Battle Creek Sanitarium, in Battle Creek, Michigan, United States, first opened on September 5, 1866, as the Western Health Reform Institute, based on the health principles advocated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church. In 1876, John Harvey Kellogg became the superintendent, and his brother, W....
to recuperate."
Title changes
| Dates | Title | Volume and Issue |
|---|---|---|
| 1890 – Jun. 1906 | Bubier's Popular Electrician | Vol. 1 No. 1 – Vol. 16 No. 6 |
| Jul. 1906 – Dec. 1913 | Electrician and Mechanic | Vol. 17 No. 1 – Vol. 27 No. 6 |
| Jan. 1914 – Jun. 1914 | Modern Electrics and Mechanics | Vol. 28 No. 1 – 6 |
| Jul. 1914 – Dec. 1914 | Popular Electricity and Modern Mechanics | Vol. 29 No. 1 – 6 |
| Jan. 1915 – Mar. 1915 | Modern Mechanics | Vol. 30 No. 1 – 3 |
| Apr. 1915 – Sep. 1915 | World's Advance | Vol. 30 No. 4 – Vol. 31 No 3 |
| Oct. 1915 – Dec. 1915 | Popular Science Monthly and World's Advance | Vol. 87 No. 4 – No. 6 |
| Jan. 1916 – Current | Popular Science Monthly | Vol. 88 No. 1 – |
Source for volume and issue numbers: Catalog of Copyright Entries, Volume 9 and 10. January 1914 to December 1915.
Publications
- Electrician and Mechanic (January–June 1912) from Harvard University Library on Google Books
- Electrician and Mechanic (January–June 1913) from Harvard University Library on Google Books
- Popular Science Monthly May 1872 to September 1915 from Biodiversity Heritage Library
- Modern Mechanics and World's Advance (January–June 1915) from Prelinger Library on Internet Archive
- World's Advance (July–September 1915) from Prelinger Library on Internet Archive
- Popular Science Monthly (January–June 1918) from New York Public Library on Google Books