Munsey's Magazine, January 1903

Munsey's Magazine led American periodical publishing in the 1890s-1900s, pioneering the ten-cent mass-market magazine that undercut competitors and reached millions. This issue features Russell Davidson's article on Alpine mountaineering, illustrated with a photograph of climbers ascending a snow slope near the Galenstock summit. The piece examines both the sport's appeal and its dangers—the previous season had proven deadly in the Alps. Munsey's mixed fiction, adventure reportage, and practical essays, establishing a formula later inherited by pulp magazines: accessible prose, dramatic imagery, and genres (exploration, crime, fantasy) that would define popular storytelling into the comic book era.