The Independent (New York City)
The Independent was a weekly magazine published in New York City between 1848 and 1928. It was founded in order to promote Congregationalism and was also an important voice in support of abolitionism and women's suffrage. In 1924 it moved to Boston, Massachusetts.
Frequency
Weekly, except fortnightly from May 27, 1922 to September 13, 1924
75,000 (1870)
December 7, 1848
October 13, 1928
New York City
Boston (from 1924)
Publication history[edit]
Beginnings[edit]
From its founding in 1848 until 1861 The Independent was edited by a team of three prominent Congregational ministers: Joseph Parrish Thompson, Richard Salter Storrs, and Leonard Bacon.[1]
It was published and financed by a group of New York businessmen led by Henry C. Bowen of the silk wholesaling firm Bowen & McNamee. The editorial policy was strongly antislavery, which hurt the magazine's circulation initially, but it improved through the 1850s to reach 35,000 by the beginning of the American Civil War.[2]
In 1861 Harriet Beecher Stowe's brother Henry Ward Beecher, who had been a regular contributor to the magazine, became its editor. His assistant editor was Theodore Tilton, who succeeded Beecher as editor in 1863 and remained in the position until 1870. During Tilton's tenure, The Independent took up the cause of women's suffrage. It also published poetry and literary contributions by authors including Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Emma Lazarus, John Greenleaf Whittier and James Russell Lowell. It reached its highest circulation of 75,000 in 1870, the year in which Tilton retired as editor.[2]