The Medium and Daybreak
1870-1895
The Medium and Daybreak
The Medium and Daybreak: a Weekly Journal, Devoted to the History, Phenomena, Philosophy, and Teachings of Spiritualism
(London, England)
(2 April 1870 − 2 April 1895)
To remedy the problems with Human Nature (and expand his subscription list), in the spring of 1869 James Burns bought out the provincial monthly Daybreak (June 1868-March 1870) by assuming the outstanding "few pounds of debt" incurred by Rev. John Page Hopps (1834-1911) in publishing the journal. Hopps was a newly minted spiritualist and a Unitarian minister, radical, and well-regarded poet and composer of hymns. Burns continued the journal from London, changing it from a monthly to a fortnightly and back again, searching for a successful formula. In April 1870, urged on by the American medium John Murray Spear and funded only by a ВЈ5 note left by a Mrs. E. Dickson at the Spiritual Institution, and with "no contributors, no means, no experience, no ambition, no end to serve," Burns changed the tiny journal Daybreak into a weekly eight-page newspaper under the name Medium and Daybreak, "A Weekly Journal Devoted to the History, Phenomena, Philosophy and Teachings of Spiritualism." Its masthead was, in its final variant, a line of beautiful spirits emerging from a dawning sun to enlighten a hoary man surrounded by dusty tomes. The journal began with 8 pp. and progressed to 16 pp. in December 1873. This was the leading weekly spiritualist periodical in England in the number of its subscribers. Frank Podmore, in the last decade of the nineteenth century, claimed that the journal had the largest circulation in Britain. Unlike its more upscale and erudite competitors, the journal was devoted to provincial middle- and laboring-class interests. Burns (1833-1894) was a true enthusiast but a poor businessman and had to resort constantly to elaborate (and fraudulent) dodges to support the journal, and at times, like so many others, he set his own type. (IAPSOP)
Some links:
- Other resources: IAPSOP
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To show: The Medium and Daybreak; sortable: Medium and Daybreak, The
Short description: [[CTD term short description::A [Weekly] Journal Devoted to the History, Phenomena, Philosophy and Teachings of Spiritualism.]]