ABSTRACT
Until Boston and New York displaced it in the 1820s, Philadelphia was the publishing capital of the nation. Philadelphia printers issued book-length biographies as well as biographical dictionaries of Revolutionary heroes, including the Marshall’s voluminous life of Washington and editions of Weem’s popular biographies of Washington and Marion. Philadelphia produced many magazines of the period as well; between 1782 and 1800, biographical sketches and graphic portraits of Revolutionary heroes appeared largely in them, while Boston and New York, less active centers of publishing, issued several containing biographical sketches. Although southern magazines prior to 1800 were few, one included a portrait of George Washington and another a biographical sketch of Nathaniel Greene. After 1800, Boston equaled Philadelphia in magazines that had portraits, but Philadelphia’s Port Folio, one of the few long-lived and financially successful magazines of the period, had the most ambitious series of articles and illustrations of Revolutionary heroes. Baltimore and Charleston magazines and, for the first time, one of the new western magazines, the Ohio Miscellaneous Museum, also devoted pages to the feats of the war’s heroes. 46
