Charles Scribner’s Sons spent over $500,000 setting up the magazine, to compete with the already successful Harper’s Monthly and The Atlantic Monthly. Scribner’s Magazine was launched in 1887, and was the first of any magazine to introduce color illustrations.

The magazine ceased publication in 1939. The magazine contained many engravings by famous artists of the 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as articles by important authors of the time, including John Thomason, Elisabeth Woodbridge Morris, Clarence Cook, and President Theodore Roosevelt.

The magazine had high sales when Roosevelt started contributing, reaching over 200,000, but gradually lost circulation after World War I. Here below is a set of vintage photos that shows covers of the Scribner’s Magazine in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.