The images on the front of nineteenth-century children’s periodicals didn’t change with every issue, but they provided delightful graphics for readers to pore over. The cover reflected the personality of the magazine: Robert Merry’s Museum was permeated by Merry’s genial presence; in keeping with The Little Corporal ’s focus on home, a family cloistered in the parlor listens as The Corporal reads aloud from the magazine.

This page celebrates the periodical cover and masthead from 1813 through 1872. A number may not be exactly artistic, but there are graphics here too interesting and inviting to ignore.

The images are arranged here by first publication date of the periodical. Because it can be difficult to find copies of the magazines with their covers on, I don’t have descriptions or images of covers for each year of the magazines.

Each thumbnail links to a larger image; larger images were scanned at a fairly high resolution in order to show detail and will appear MUCH larger than seems plausible. Sizes of the images on this page are roughly proportional; it’s easy to see how unusually tiny The Slave’s Friend was—just the size to slip into a pocket and read in private. A number of the covers are available to decorate your computer as a busybusy desktop wallpaper.

The title of each periodical links that periodical’s description in the onsite bibliography, “American Children’s Periodicals, 1789-1872.” While this page features only images from copies I own, the bibliography includes images of covers from microfilm and various databases; if you’d like to know more about the covers of children’s periodicals before 1873, you’ll want to browse the bibliography.

A note about the images.

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The Woodworth brothers made the Cabinet into a 32-page magazine.