ABSTRACT
Scribner’s Monthly came of age during New York’s rise as cultural capital. This essay explores how editor Richard Watson Gilder and his wife, artist Helena de Kay, capitalized on his position to support and publicize emerging artistic institutions, forming a community within the city for artists returning from study overseas. Later dismissed by progressives as reactionary, his visionary use of print media contributed to the obsession with “culture.” Engaging with burgeoning industries of art and publishing, Scribner’s is an ideal lens through which to examine the establishment of New York as the nation’s cultural capital during the Gilded Age.
