Street and Smith

Founded in 1855 by Francis Scott Street and Francis Shubael Smith in New York City, Street & Smith began with a focus on dime novels and serialized weekly stories.

In the 1920s and 1930s the company evolved into one of the most prolific publishers of pulp magazines, a format characterized by cheap paper, colorful covers, and sensational storytelling. Through the era, Street & Smith firmly established itself in a variety of genres: romance, westerns, detective stories, adventure tales, and early science fiction.

However, one of the company’s most important strategic moves was to embrace genre specialization. This included launching Western Story Magazine, one of the earliest and most successful western pulps. Street & Smith was also at the forefront of serialized character-driven storytelling, which became a hallmark of the pulp format. Their titles were known not just for thrilling plots but for recurring heroes readers would follow month after month. Most notably, Street & Smith (through Publisher Henry W. Ralston and Editor John L. Nanovic) was responsible for introducing two of the most enduring figures in pulp history: The Shadow and Doc Savage. These characters not only defined their respective magazines but helped shape the template for what would become the modern superhero. Their adventures mixed mystery, action, exotic settings, and science fiction in a way that was both formulaic and wildly imaginative.

The decline of pulp magazines in the late 1940s (due to competition from radio, comic books, and television) led Street & Smith to cancel Doc Savage Magazine on April 8, 1949.