About Frank Munsey
Frank Andrew Munsey (August 21, 1854 – December 22, 1925) was an American newspaper and magazine publisher, banker, political financier and author. He was born in Mercer, Maine, but spent most of his life in New York City. The village of Munsey Park, New York, is named for him, along with The Munsey Building in downtown Baltimore, Maryland, at the southeast corner of North Calvert and East Fayette Streets. Munsey is credited with using new, high-speed printing presses, supplied with inexpensive, untrimmed, pulp paper, to mass-produce magazines at significantly reduced costs. Each issue could be priced as low as 10 cents; less than half the lowest price then charged for similar publications. Munsey's publishing presented diverse genres, preferring fictional, action-adventure storytelling. His magazines were aimed at working-class readers who could neither afford, nor expect to read about people like themselves in, the 25-cent "slick" magazines of the time. Munsey's pulp magazine innovation spawned a new line of publishing, one in which he was well positioned to profit, and from which he did become wealthy. If one of his magazine titles was no longer profitable, Munsey would stop his presses just long enough to typeset/promote one of many titles continuously being field-tested. New titles can expand revenue or replace what has been lost when demand for an older title is much reduced. There he discovered that the cost estimates he had made were unrealistically low. By the February issue Munsey was printing 200,000 copies, and it soon became successful enough to guarantee his financial security.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.