The Land of Sunshine was first published by the F. A. Pattee Publishing Company in June 1894 as a
quarto measuring . It was originally
ghost-edited by Charles Dwight Willard, Perhaps his favorite subjects, however, were championing
Native American rights and criticizing the
Federal Indian Policy. Lummis was regarded as an "impulsive firebrand" as a thinker and a writer, and his ideas, both in
The Land of Sunshine and other works, often had a polarizing effect on other writers and academics. In June 1895, the magazine was reduced to dimensions of , although its total number of pages grew. In 1898, Lummis expanded the scope of the magazine to include the entire West, which he defined as anything "which is far enough away from the East to be Out from Under". This was accentuated by the magazine's change of name to
Out West in January 1902. During his tenure as editor, Lummis maintained relations of various kinds with other periodicals, both in the
Western United States and the country at large: this included amicable relations with
The Nation and
The Dial, an antagonistic relationship with
Overland Monthly, and a more complex relationship with
The Argonaut, as Lummis lauded the latter's
anti-imperialist stance but criticized it for at times being
anti-Catholic. , editor of
Out West in 1922 Lummis edited the magazine by himself until the February 1903 issue, when he was joined by
Charles Amadon Moody: together, they would edit the magazine until Lummis departed in November 1909. According to Bingham, the magazine's influence and reputation as one of the
Pacific Coast's premier publications ended with Lummis' departure.
Out West subsequently witnessed a succession of editors that included C. F. Edholm,
George Wharton James, and
Lannie Haynes Martin, and it "ceased to appear with any regularity" after its June 1917 issue. In May 1923, it was consolidated with
Overland Monthly to form
Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine, which remained in publication until July 1935.
Publication and circulation At the beginning of its existence,
The Land of Sunshine was printed and bound by Kingsley-Barnes and Neuner Company in the Stimson Building while its photoengraving needs were handled by a variety of local companies. In 1898, the magazine began in-house publication in a building on
South Broadway that combined editorial and printing functions, which by late 1901 boasted six
job presses and four
cylinder presses, one of which was an Optimus cylinder used principally for printing illustrated pages. In April 1904, the printing of the magazine was once again physically separated from its editorial offices, and this arrangement persisted until Lummis departed in 1909. Initially,
The Land of Sunshine was published by the F. A. Pattee Publishing Company, but in August 1895 these duties were assumed by the newly incorporated Land of Sunshine Publishing Co., which at its inception consisted of W.C. Patterson (president), Lummis (vice president), Pattee (secretary and business manager), H.J. Fleishman (treasurer), Charles Cassat Davis (attorney), and Cyrus M. Davis. While Willard initially had the largest individual financial stake in the magazine, Lummis eventually bought him out with financial backing from
Phoebe Hearst, the mother of newspaper magnate
William Randolph Hearst. Lummis retained his interests in the magazine until his departure from it in 1909.
The Land of Sunshine's circulation reached 9,000 in December 1895, which its publishers claimed was "the largest certified regular circulation of any western monthly". In July 1899, the magazine's average circulation was 9,147. The magazine enjoyed its highest circulation in 1903 (10,766) and 1904 (an estimated 15,000). Measuring the circulation of
Out West after 1903 is challenging because the actual figures were not kept or provided to newspaper directories, which resorted to consistently estimating its circulation at between 7,500 and 12,500 after 1904. In the United States, most of the magazine's subscribers were in California, followed in decreasing order by the
Arizona Territory,
New York,
Massachusetts, and the
New Mexico Territory.
The Land of Sunshine counted
Theodore Roosevelt as one of its subscribers, and he told Lummis that during his
Presidency it was the only magazine that he "took time to read". The magazine also had some semblance of an international scope: in January 1907,
Out West claimed subscribers in
England,
Belgium,
Italy,
Germany,
Japan,
France,
Sweden,
Brazil,
New Zealand,
Mexico,
Greece,
Siam, and
North China.
Contributors , editor and most frequent contributor in the history of the magazine Throughout its early existence,
The Land of Sunshine had difficulty securing contributions from
freelance writers, largely because of its specific focus on Californian and Western themes and its inability to pay standard rates. The issue was so acute when Lummis began editing the magazine that he often contributed a "disproportionate" amount of content, which sometimes resulted in him resorting to contributing under transparent
pseudonyms such as C. Arloz and C. R. Lohs, references to his nickname Don Carlos. In an effort to recruit writers for the magazine, Lummis organized a "syndicate of established writers" interested in writing Western content and paid them with
stock certificates in the Land of Sunshine Publishing Co. in lieu of cash payments. Members of this syndicate, which included different types of writers as well as artists, included
George Parker Winship,
Frederick Webb Hodge,
Maynard Dixon,
William Keith,
Ina Coolbrith,
Edwin Markham, Theodore H. Hittell,
David Starr Jordan, Ella Higginson,
John Vance Cheney,
Charles Warren Stoddard, George Hamlin Fitch,
Washington Matthews,
Charles and Louise Keller,
Charlotte Perkins Stetson,
Joaquin Miller,
Elliott Coues,
Eugene Manlove Rhodes,
Sharlot Hall, and
Mary Hunter Austin.
Grace Ellery Channing was also a prominent contributor to
The Land of Sunshine. Over the history of the magazine, Lummis contributed the most content: a total of more than 250 essays, articles, poems, and stories. After him, the next most frequent contributors were
William E. Smythe (with 48 total contributions), Sharlot Hall (42), and Julia Boynton Green (23). In addition to writing for the magazine, Lummis also founded two organizations of similar scope and purpose: the Landmarks Club, which was dedicated to preserving the
Spanish missions in the region from further deterioration, and the Southwest Society, which ultimately evolved into the
Southwest Museum of the American Indian. == References ==