McMASTER'S OKLAHOMA MAGAZINE (1889-1900)Devoted to Oklahoma and the Indian Territories, Oklahoma Magazine, one of the first territorial magazines to abandon strictly religious or settlement-promoting articles for a multipurpose format, made its home in Oklahoma City. Following eight years of publication, the magazine became known by a more familiar title, McMaster's Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly of Oklahoma and Indian Territory. After several treks to the Oklahoma Territory beginning in 1882, Frank McMaster, lawyer, editor, and Oklahoma Eighty-niner, brought his printing materials from Chicago to Oklahoma City in 1889, where he began publishing The Gazette, a regular newspaper. From his address at 19 Grand Avenue, he also began publishing the Oklahoma Magazine, a sometimes weekly, sometimes monthly, (sometimes not published at all) magazine that set the tone for publications to follow in its wake. McMaster's Magazine (1889-98) preceded its rivals, Twin Territories (1898-1904) and Sturm's Statehood Magazine (1905-11) although, with some exceptions, all three used similar content design. Each McMaster's issue contained approximately sixty, six-by-nine-inch pages of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry, with photos and illustrations liberally interspersed. Recognized by his contemporaries and modern readers alike for its concise and timely reporting, the nineteenth-century McMaster's Magazine is of historical significance. The narrative accounts chronicle people and events, providing a decade's worth of authoritative resources for historical researchers and for those simply curious about formative Oklahoma. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Carolyn Thomas Foreman, Oklahoma Imprints, 1835-1907: A History of Printing in Oklahoma Before Statehood (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1936). Luther B. Hill, A History of the State of Oklahoma (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Company, 1908). Frank McMaster, "An 89er, How He Rushed and What For," Sturm's Oklahoma Magazine, 1 February 1909. Theo Hunter Vickers, "Biography of Frank McMaster," Vertical Files, Research Division, Oklahoma Historical Society. Esther Witcher, "Territorial Magazines," The Chronicles of Oklahoma 29 (Winter 1951-52). Suzzanne Kelley © Oklahoma Historical Society |