Frank Andrew Munsey was an American author and newspaper publisher. He was born on August 21, 1854 in Mercer, Maine but spent the majority of his years in New York City. Munsey was honored in New York the Munsey Park and the Munsey Building in Baltimore, which were named after him.
Before he rose to the top of the newspaper and magazine publishing business, Munsey took several odd jobs. He failed in his first job as a general store manager so he moved to Augusta, maine to work in the Western Union telegraph office as telegraph operator. He was promoted to the position of manager where he was introduced to his first encounter with new media. Later, Munsey would use his experience with Western Union in the printing business.
Moving to New York City in 1882, Munsey ventured into the publishing industry. He purchased the rights to a number of stories with his savings. He entered into a partnership agreement with two of his friends: one from New York City and another from Augusta, who was a stockbroker. As soon as Munsey arrived in New York, his stockbroker friend opted to be released from the partnership. Munsey approached a publisher from New York to replace his friend. Munsey was able to edit and print his first magazine which he named Golden Argosy within just two months from his arrival.
Munsey became popular with the concept of using a high-speed presses to print on cheap and untrimmed pulp paper for the mass production of ten-cent magazines. Munsey observed that the working class were not interested to read the more expensive 25-cent “slick” magazines which typically contained action and adventure-fiction stories. Munsey’s innovation was later known as pulp magazine. Pulp magazines drew the industry unto Munsey which made him wealthy. Munsey was quick to stop printing and change contents as soon as he noticed that his magazines were unprofitable and would oftentimes start new ones as replacements.
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