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The Ridgway Company started Adventure magazine in response to the success of pulps like Argosy, which by 1910 were selling hundreds of thousands of copies of each issue. Unlike other pulps, which contained a wide variety of stories ranging from danger to romance, it specialised in stories of danger and thrills and as such managed to survive in one form or another into the early 1970s. 'In its first decade of publication [Adventure] carried fiction by such notable authors as Rider Haggard, William Le Queux, John Buchan, Rafael Sabatini, Baroness Orczy, and H. Bedford-Jones. By the 1920s [it] had become one of the most profitable and critically acclaimed magazines of its kind, and in 1935, it would be hailed as "The No. 1 Pulp" by the editors of Time.
The magazine's first editor, explorer and journalist Trumbull White (1910-1912), remained in the position for a little over a year but established two principles that guided Adventure's furture editorial policy. The first was that an 'adventure story did not have to be set in an exotic location' and the second was that the story should be as accurate possible in terms of history, geography and culture. Adventure's second editor, Arthur Hoffman (1912-1927), also introduced several key features that establish the magazine America's most popular pulp. These included its editorial column ('The Camp-Fire'); a section called 'Lost Trails,' which helped re-unite readers with lost family and friends' 'Wanted-Men and Adventurers,' a 'Help Wanted' section for those interested in excitement and adventure; and 'Ask Adventure,' which allowed readers to submit questions to the magazine's international panel of experts.
A string of editors succeeded Hoffman through until its eventual demise. Following its purchase of the Butterick Publishing Company in 1934, Henry Steeger’s Popular Publications introduced a number of changes to the magazine, including its format, publication frequency and content. By the mid-1950s it had become a 'men's adventure magazine,' and according to Richard Bleiler, soon afterwards became 'a dying embarrassment, printing grainy black and white photos of semi-nude women.'
[Sources: Bleiler, Richard, 'A History of Adventure Magazine.' The Index to Adventure Magazine (2009); The Pulp Magazines Project]
Notes
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Although published under the name Ridway Company, the firm had been sold in 1909 to the Butterick Publishing Company, a Boston-based manufacturer of women’s dress patterns that was also one of the largest publishers of magazines in America. Ridway's was therefore technically an imprint of the Boston firm. Richard Bleiler notes in theis regard:
Adventure steam-rolled along until late September 1926, when the Ridgway Company was sold. That the buyer and new owner was the Butterick Publishing Company implies a corporate reorganization, for the Butterick Publishing Company was already the owner of Adventure: it had owned the Ridgway Company since 1909. Nevertheless, the Butterick Company behaved as though it were newly arrived and talked of making changes in all departments.
