NIU’s Race to Save An Important Part of Fiction Publishing History

Posted in: Comics, Vintage Paper | Tagged: dime novels, norman l. munro

NIU is holding a fundraiser April 2-3 to back an effort to conserve and digitize the world’s best collection of historically important Family Story Paper.

Family Story Paper was a general-interest weekly fiction paper that lasted for nearly 2,500 issues from 1873-1921.  It is widely considered to be one of the best-selling story papers of its era, and was part of the basis for publisher Norman L. Munro’s considerable fortune.  The series featured a range of stories, including adventure, detective fiction, and romance. Family Story Paper also featured the earliest adventures of long-running detective character Old Cap Collier. We’ve discussed Munro here a few times, as he (and a handful of his publishing contemporaries) is a vastly underappreciated figure in the direction of popular, mass-market newsstand fiction in America, and we also took a deep dive into Family Story Paper #688 a few years back.  As noted in the above video from Northern Illinois University, despite its popularity at the time, the title is more difficult to obtain than many other long-running story papers of this era, in part because for decades it was less collected than some others like New York Weekly or Boys of New York.  NIU is running a fundraising campaign to conserve and digitize its holdings of Family Story Paper that officially launches at 4:25 p.m. CST on Wednesday, April 2 (the donation button will go live at that time) and ends at 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, April 3.

NIU has one of the world’s best institutional holdings of dime novel material, and its continuing efforts to scan those holdings and make them freely available online for anyone to read and study is one of the most important such efforts going on in this area of research today. On a personal note, as someone who collects numerous such series of 1,000+ issues myself, I can confirm that holdings of 947 issues of Family Story Paper is incredibly impressive.  The title is without doubt one of the toughest to obtain among the major, long-running 1000+ issue titles.  As NIU notes about the series, it is of particular interest due to its contributions from female authors, including Laura Jean Libbey, Nellie Bly, Mrs. E. Burke Collins, Emma Garrison Jones, and Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller.  To that I would add that in general, there is more social commentary about those times embedded in the material here than is generally understood. As his life went on, Norman L. Munro enjoyed his considerable social standing in New York society, and he also had political ambitions — all of which had an impact on the things he published.

Of particular research interest to me, for example, would be finding more Family Story Paper contributions by dime novel author Kenward Philp.  Philp was a noted political raconteur during this era, and in 1880 played a central role in the Morey letter conspiracy, which had been an attempt to use a forged letter purported to have been written by James A. Garfield to throw the Presidential Election of that year in favor of Winfield Scott Hancock.  Philp was arrested, tried, and acquitted for his role in the matter (though I have little doubt he was involved).  Considered quick-witted and crafty by contemporaries, reportedly possessing an eidetic memory and a considerable number of international political contacts, Philp rarely wrote anything, even fiction, without some additional motives.  I would love to see these Family Story Paper issues scanned for this reason among many others.

NIU’s Family Story Paper fundraising campaign officially launches at 4:25 p.m. CST on Wednesday, April 2, and ends at 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, April 3. Running totals for the campaign can also be tracked. NIU is seeking to raise $10,000, which will allow them to preserve and digitize 750 issues.  In the meantime, a look at their online scans of dime novel material is well worth your time.

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