How to Work With Penny Magazines

Authors interested in the 19th century might like to take a look at The Penny Magazines.

Edited by Charles Knight and published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in the early 1830s, it soon became popular with the working class. The magazine came out every week and the editor crammed it with subjects of general interest.

The Society For The Diffusion of Useful Knowledge
The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, founded in 1828 by Lord Brougham, had high and commendable ideals. They wanted to bring education to the masses. For a while it worked well. At its high point, the magazine had a circulation of about 200,000.

Little by little, the circulation dwindled to almost nothing, and the society closed down in 1848.
The working class worked long hours and had little time for self-education. In addition, many of the subjects did not interest them. Nonetheless, the Penny Magazine existed and played a role in history.

The Table of Contents
Here is the table of contents of The Penny Magazine dated July 18th 1935.

Valley of Meran - Describes the valley of Meran in the Tyrol, the cattle, vines and the people living there.
Butter - The word butter in different languages, history of butter, how the Moors of the Empire of Morocco make butter.
Curious Fashion and Anecdote. An anecdote about a fashion in 1612. A man called Maxwell led a gentleman out of a room by a black string he wore in his ear. All the Gentry in London took this as a personal insult.
Goats as Wet-nurses - From Montaigne's Essays.
Expediency of Measuring Distances from a Common Centre in London.- How distance is measured, going back to Roman times.
Galilee of Durham Cathedral and Tomb of Venerable Bede. - A detailed description of the part of the cathedral called the Galilee.
The Great Eagle.- All about the great eagle, how it feeds, its strength, cases of children being taken by eagles.
Mineral Kingdom - Section XLI. Mercury or Quicksilver.- All about mercury, experiments, varieties, mining.
Custom of Sitting Uncovered in Churches - Concerning the habit of men sitting in churches without their hats on.

170 Years Later
In my opinion, the magazine's popularity became a fad. I find the vocabulary and style as well as the subject matter way over the readers' head. I just can't imagine the tired workers sitting down to read these articles. Although interesting, they did not entertain the working class. After a long (very long) and tiring (very tiring) day in the mines, wash houses, factories, or scrubbing floors, the person wanted some kind of entertainment. I can understand them.
But, of course, for a historical researcher, Penny Magazines are worth looking into. The Penny Magazine was an experiment. It failed for specific reasons. The reasons for which it failed are important for the researcher.