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Founded in November, 1857 by Boston publisher Sampson & Company, the
Atlantic Monthly quickly became the leading literary magazine of nineteenth-century America. Under the brilliant editorship of
James Russell Lowell, a well known poet, the periodical was catapulted into the
limelight with contributions from a cadre of literary greats including Ralph
Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and John Greenleaf Whittier. By 1861
the Atlantic Monthly had reached a circulation of 32,000.
The literary excellence of the Atlantic Monthly reached full stride in
the years of the Civil War thanks to James T. Fields who became editor in July,
1861. A shrewd entrepreneur and seasoned publisher, Fields and his
business partner William Davis Ticknor had purchased the Boston periodical from
Sampson & Company in November, 1859. Although the Atlantic Monthly
was first and foremost a magazine of literature, it was in this field that
its political views were most often expressed in such works as Julia Ward Howe's
"The Battle Hymn of the Republic," a poem which would become the war's anthem,
Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Chiefly About War-Matters," an account of the author's
trip to the nation's capital, and Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Boston Hymn," a
response to the Emancipation Proclamation. In editorials and political
analysis pieces, Fields left no doubt with his readers that the Boston magazine
was an anti-slavery journal.
By 1866 the circulation of Atlantic Monthly had risen to more than
50,000, which would remain the apex of the magazine's popularity until
the twentieth century. Tireless in his dedication to the Boston
periodical, Fields remained editor until 1871.
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