University of Mississippi

Review of Literature 

 

Children’s magazines are an important part of the written record of American civilization 

from the Industrial Revolution to the Digital Revolution and yet a dearth of scholarship exists 

about their development and publication. The intent of this chronologically arranged literature 

review is to provide pertinent media research about the significant and neglected field of 

children’s periodicals in the United States by analyzing status and role, changes in publishing 

and marketing, and predictions for the future. The literature reviewed here will show the need for 

additional investigation and scholarship about the subject of children’s periodicals with 

particular emphasis on the last decade of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-

first century.