Girls of Today
The New York Mirror

"In Girls of Today, the young women of America have their own paper! Bright, spirited and cheering — Answering their tastes and fancies — Anticipating their needs and wants — Administering pleasure and profit! A mirror of romance and the real — reflecting love and heart-life — portraying passion, feeling and emotion — photographing life and experience — presenting the strange, the novel and the new — delineating society and human nature — by the pens of the most charming men and women writers."

So ran the blurb in No. 1 of Girls of Today. A Mirror of Romance, which appeared December 4, 1875. Frank Starr & Co., a Beadle firm,⁽¹⁾ of 41 Platt Street, were given as the publishers.

The paper was an 8-page weekly, 20 by 13½ inches in size, with five columns to the page and one or more illustrations in each number (Fig. 164). It was published at five cents a copy or $2.50 a year. The paper lasted only 25 numbers, ending May 20, 1876. During its short existence, there were four changes in the heading. In No. 14, the words The New York Mirror, in Old Style Extended type, were placed above the original title (Fig. 165). In No. 15 the old heading was replaced by one reading, The New York Mirror, A Journal of Romance, but above it, in skeleton letters, were the words Girls of Today (Fig. 166). In No. 16, the latter words were dropped and the title remained The New York Mirror to the end. The explanation given in No. 14 was:

"With the next issue Girls of Today adopts the expressive and beautiful name of The New York Mirror, a change impelled by the fact that, contrary to our expectations, the first adopted title was, in a degree, narrowing the weekly down to a strictly class journal — which it is not intended it shall be. Being a weekly in which Fact, Fancy and Fiction are delightfully blended, it appeals to all classes, interests and readers."

Girls alone, apparently, could not be depended upon to support the journal. The new name may cause some confusion unless the year of issue is noted, for there was another weekly New York Mirror published in New York in 1823 to 1842 and 1844 to 1846.

In No. 25, May 20, 1876, there was another announcement:

"This number is the last issue of the New York Mirror. The success of the paper, though by no means discouraging, is not ample enough to warrant its continuance — an announcement which, we are sure, all its readers will receive with regret. The list is turned over to the New York Saturday Journal — one of the most popular and admirable of all the weeklies — which will be supplied to the end of each subscription."

There was an error in numbering some of the copies of May 6, 1876. They are marked No. 24, instead of No. 23, but the date is correct.

Many of the regular Beadle authors, besides the authors of the serials listed below, wrote short sketches or poems for Girls of Today. Among them were Charles Morris, Eben Rexford, T. C. Harbaugh, Mrs. Crowell, Albert W. Aiken, and others.

Fig. 164 Girls of Today
Only 26 numbers were issued from December 4, 1875, to May 20, 1876.
REDUCED.

Fig. 165 Girls of Today
With sub-title The New York Mirror.

Fig. 166 The New-York Mirror
With sub-title Girls of To-day.

Notes

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