Pulp Market Share, 1928.

[ratmmjess]

Title data: 119 total pulps.

• Adventure: 11 titles, 9.2%.
• Aviation: 9 titles, 7.6%.
• Boxing: 1 title, 0.8%.
• Detective: 8 titles, 6.7%.
• Fantastica: 3 titles, 2.5%.

Comments

[rainboworchid]

Fascinating stuff! I think Charles Lindbergh's transatlantic flight in 1927 may have had something to do with the increase in aviation magazines.

[ratmmjess]

Ooof. Should have caught that--thanks for pointing it out!

[princeofcairo]

The pulps had a surprising number of female protagonists--despite their (deserved) reputation for racism and sexism, the pulps also had a lot of female and non-white heroes and heroines, far far more than appeared in the slicks. So perhaps the truth is that pulp publishers were less in thrall to sexism than we now assume. It would not be at all odd or unusual for greed to trump sexism in their thought processes.

This is also the beginning of the great age of good female parts in movies -- the 25 or so years of screwball comedy and noir -- which basically ended some time around 1955 or so, and has never ever returned. Interesting, strong, capable, human female characters are not uncommon across the entertainment spectrum in the pulp age, in other words.

[ratmmjess]

Interesting point, Ken--I'm going to steal that for my book. :-)

[full_metal_ox]

Romance and its fandom are far from my forte, but this blog--which came to my attention when one of its contributors responded to a post of dr-hermes's,--has posted some historical material and might provide you some useful correspondence.