BIRTH OF A TRADITION: The first issue, August 28, 1845
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Every year Scientific American produces a single-topic issue, and this time we're tackling the theme of origins: our September issue explores 57 innovations and insights that shape our world today. As an added bonus, we're presenting several related online-only features, including a weeklong posting of 10 additional origins stories as well as a special slide show.
And what better way to launch our special week of origins stories than with one about our own? Most people who have studied some science have heard of Scientific American , and even the young texting generation might be aware that it comes out in print once a month. But would you have guessed that Scientific American is the oldest continuously published magazine in the U.S.? Founded by inventor Rufus Porter, the first issue appeared as a large format newspaper in 1845—in fact, our 164th birthday happens next Friday, on August 28.
But The Scientific American, as Porter called it, hardly resembles today's publication (we've long since dropped the "the"). In the first issue, under the logo and scrolling leaves and flowers, a slogan reads: "The Advocate of Industry and Enterprise, and Journal of Mechanical and Other Improvements." The biweekly broadsheet focused mostly on patents and advice for inventors. After 10 months, Porter sold The Scientific American to Orson Desaix Munn and Alfred Ely Beach for $800—about $23,000 in today's dollars using the consumer price index (but about $5.65 million using the relative share of the gross domestic product as a measure).
The magazine began its modern incarnation after World War II. In 1948, Gerard Piel, Dennis Flanagan and Donald Miller purchased the publication from Munn & Company and founded Scientific American, Inc. In their quest to increase the immediacy, timeliness and authority of the magazine, they insisted that the majority of the articles be written by the people who actually did the work described—a unique distinction among consumer magazines.
Scientific American has greatly expanded its offerings since then. Besides the Web site, launched in 1996, we publish the bimonthly Scientific American Mind (begun in 2004) and have 15 international editions. We are now owned by Macmillan and are part of the Nature Publishing Group. You can read the magazine's full history here.
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11 Comments
Add CommentI have been a regular reader of SciAm since I was about 14, and in my opinion one of the worst editorial decisions of that 33 years was eliminating the Amateur Scientist column. Not only did the column hark back to the magazine's origins, but it got enthusiasts to treat science as an active rather than passive pursuit. This is needed more than ever today with the passive nature of the Internet, to get kids of all ages out of their chairs and "blowing stuff up (not necessarily literally :))"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisToo bad you don't show the original pages, on a commemorative site for your anniversary. The artwork and typeface was beautiful, I used to have some issue from the 19th century and enjoyed looking and reading them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiscan you please scan some of them and send them
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDear arunkagg; I'm sorry as I said: Use to have! Sold them years ago needed space for other stuff.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisi bet they will post a slide show or something on the 28th, I would not mind reading an article or two from the first one in its original format
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt would really be great if they did something special! It's been such a great magazine for years and of historical importance.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI received my first subscription as a gift in 1955 (I was 10 years old!!) and I have renewed it ever since except for a one year period in the early 80s when money was so tight. To my mind, the most significant threads I have found in that period was the verification of plate tectonics and the "discovery" of the Missoula ice dam floods!! Keep going, and keep the level where the average reader with above average inquisitiveness can still be interested in most of the magazine.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have read the magazine without interruption since 1972 and I have been able to extend my collection, which I cherish, back to 1964. Something I miss from the sixties and seventies is your very informative articles on certain topics, even if these were not cutting edge technology, like Steel, Glass, Atherosclerosis and many others. Also, the magazine was much thicker then. Have you ever considered posting an index in your web page? I am sure that many a loyal reader like me would be grateful.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhere is the 1845 slide show?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI surely can't find it!
It is on the top of this page, there is a "Here".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI see the first issue was in black ink, of course. I wonder when color ink came in, how it came in, and if scientific american reported on it.
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