Unlike newspapers circulated in one city, Carey sent his magazines to locations throughout the United States. That gave his contributors the widest audience. Nearly all of America’s prominent figures read it. Articles in the Museum stressed the importance of a strong central government, America’s potential for greatness and the importance of trade and commerce to the national economy.[1]
Carey found subscribers throughout the nation at a time when America’s fledgling postal service and roads were rudimentary. He contacted writers, printers, and friends in most of the thirteen states, circulating an advertisement for the Museum to collect subscriptions.
It took several years to set up the network. In 1787, Carey initially sent copies of the magazine to six printers in four cities: Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, and Charleston. He enlisted the help of his brother John, and James Stewart, a future business partner, and booksellers to increase circulation. During the first three months of 1789, John Carey traveled through Maryland and Virginia to twenty-seven towns surrounding the Chesapeake Bay, convincing agents to offer subscriptions to residents in their vicinities.[2]
“…a more useful literary plan [for the American Museum] has never been undertaken in America or one more deserving of public encouragement…”[3]
George Washington
Carey loved to ride.[4] Later that year, he undertook an ambitious expedition on horseback of almost 2,000 miles, firming up agreements with existing agents, and seeking more representatives in rural Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia.[5]
One evening he lodged at an inn with suspicious characters. As he undressed for bed, he let his pantaloons drop to the floor. A telltale jingle of gold and silver coins in his pocket alerted them that he was transporting specie. As he set out the next day, two men tried to rob him. He carried a gun and brandished it, thwarting their efforts. This experience taught him the dangers of carrying specie on the road when his bank in Philadelphia often refused to accept notes from banks in far-flung locations in the South.[6]
In 1791, Carey distributed his magazine to forty-eight agents, the largest number he achieved in his network. In August, twenty of his representatives ended their arrangement with him. Carey had difficulty replacing them. [7]
George Washington (1732-1799) praised Carey’s magazine, which made important articles and documents available to citizens throughout the new republic.
Carey met with frustrations at every turn. Workers poorly packaged the magazines sent to distant locations. Carey could not count on shippers to deliver the magazines. Roads were primitive, and at times, impassable. Collecting payments was difficult, either because Carey’s agents would not follow through, or because subscribers had unreliable deliveries. When subscribers failed to pay, Carey hired collection agents cutting into his profits.[8] Despite these setbacks, Carey garnered subscribers from every state except Vermont and New Hampshire. He also sold subscriptions in Europe and the Caribbean.[9]
“Never was more labor bestowed on a work with less reward. During the whole six years [of the Museum’s publication] I was in a state of intense penury.” [10]
Mathew Carey
BECOMING AMERICAN | TRANSITION TO PUBLISHER | Washington’s Inauguration
[1] Robert W. Sellen, “The American Museum, 1787-1792, as a Forum for Ideas of American Foreign Policy,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, V. 93 N. 2 (1969) 179-80.
[2]Robb K. Haberman, “Civic Rivalry in Postrevolutionary American Magazines,” Early American Studies V. 10 N. 1, (Winter, 2012) 178.
[3] Mathew Carey, Autobiography (Brooklyn: Research Classics, 1942) ff23.
[4] Mathew Carey, “The Crisis,” (Philadelphia, Printed by William F. Geddes for Mathew Carey July 26, 1832) 20.
[5] Haberman, “Civic Rivalry,” 178.
[6] Mathew Carey, Miscellanies II, ms. (c. 1834) private collection, 19-27.
[7] Haberman, “Civic Rivalry,” 178-9.
[8] James N. Green, “From Printer to Publisher: Mathew Carey and the Origins of Nineteenth-Century Book Publishing,” In Getting the Books Out: Papers of the Chicago Conference on the Book in 19th Century America, ed. Michael Hackenberg (Washington, D.C.: Center for the Book, Library of Congress, 1987) 28-9.
[9] Earl L. Bradsher, Mathew Carey, Editor, Author and Publisher: A Study in American Literary Development, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1912) 8.
[10] Carey, Autobiography, 22.