Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper

Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper

Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, April 28, 1883 cover
Categories	Literary and news
Publisher	Frank Leslie
First issue	1855
Final issue	1922
Country	United States

Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, later renamed Leslie's Weekly, was an American illustrated literary and news magazine founded in 1855 and published until 1922. It was one of several magazines started by publisher and illustrator Frank Leslie.

Throughout its decades of existence, the weekly provided illustrations and reports—first with wood engravings and Daguerreotypes, later with more advanced forms of photography—of wars from John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry and the Civil War until the Spanish–American War and the First World War.

Frank Leslie was the pen name of Henry Carter (1821-1880), the son of a well-to-do English glovemaker. Carter had taken up the art of wood engraving over his father's objection and emigrated to New York City to make his own way in the world, arriving in 1848. Carter — who adopted the Frank Leslie name immediately upon his arrival — was unable to find a position as an illustrator with an established newspaper in the city and was forced to open his own business, a small engraving shop on Broadway Avenue.

One of Leslie's early clients was promoter P. T. Barnum, who commissioned Leslie to produce a posh illustrated concert program for singer Jenny Lind in 1849. Additional work was done for Barnum for another Lind tour in 1850 and 1851. When Barnum decided to launch a publication called The Illustrated News in 1853, he turned to Leslie, hiring him as chief engraver for the short-lived publication, which failed within its first year of existence.

Out of a job once more, Leslie decided to begin publishing on his own, launching two new periodicals in 1854 — Frank Leslie's Ladies' Gazette of Fashion, a fashion-oriented newspaper, and Frank Leslie's Journal of Romance, an illustrated fiction magazine. Both of these publications proved to be financially lucrative, and in 1855 Leslie added a third publication to his stable, an illustrated news weekly called Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper.