This mode of sale lasted until the 1920s when gay and lesbian magazines could be found in German kiosks alongside newspapers and mainstream magazines. It was not sold on the market stand but could be obtained from listed sources and underground merchants. The first gay magazine, Der Eigene, was published in Germany in 1896. It was not until the 20th Century, with the advent of cheap printing technology, that magazine publishing became a more commercial affair, with its main source of income from the advertiser and not the reader. The formula for a magazine included lengthy pieces of fiction as well as articles known as ‘improving material.’ By the 19th Century, the target audience changed: middle-class women were the new readers of titles like the Englishwomans’ Domestic Magazine and Charles Dickens’ Household Works. Other magazines followed in the eighteenth century, coinciding with the rise of literacy – The Lady’s magazine and The Lady’s Monthly Museum were however only affordable to a small section of elite female British society. Although periodicals had been published before, it was first used to describe a publication in 1731 with advent of the Gentlemen’s Magazine. The word magazine is an Arabic term for storehouse. An historical timeline of gay magazines, from 1897 to 2008.
