The Theosophical Messenger (periodical)
The Theosophical Messenger was the national journal of the American Theosophical Society from 1927-1931. L. W. Rogers was the editor, and the monthly periodical was published at the newly established headquarters of the Society in Wheaton, Illinois. It took up in December, 1927 as a successor to The Messenger, using the same volume and issue numbering. Thus, the first issue was designated as Volume 15, Issue 7. Numbering went to a calendar schedule beginning with Volume 17, Issue 1 in January, 1929, and continued monthly on this system until the final issue (Volume 20, Issue 12) on December, 1932. The successor journal was The American Theosophist.
Index to the periodical
the Union Index of Theosophical Periodicals has an index to the articles of this periodical.
Production of the journal
An insight to the printing and mailing process is found in this notice from the Membership Department:
When a member fails to pay his dues on time, it makes far more than double work at Headquarters. First, we have to send him a letter after he is a couple of months behind time. Then, his delinquency continuing to the end of the first quarter, we have to shift his membership record card to the delinquent section, take his name off the MESSENGER list, and notify the printers. They throw his address plate into the metal scrap heap. Soon after that, in many cases, the tardy dues arrive, perhaps four or five months late. Then we have to shift the record card back to the original position, write it on the MESSENGER mailing list, notify the printer, and pay for the new address plate. In most cases the tardy member has, by that time, missed two or three copies of the MESSENGER because he was not entitled to them. But having now paid up, he is entitled to them, and we have the additional work of writing wrappers and mailing the magazines. Had he paid his $3 on time to his Secretary, all this work and expense would have been avoided.[1]
IN the late 1920s, the magazine was printed in Mt. Morris, Illinois, at Kables Brothers Printing. It was a mammoth print shop that specialized in magazines, newspapers, and catalogs. Mrs. Weaver, representing the "fraternal magazine department," visited the Society headquarters in July, 1929, and reported that several Kables employees planned to attend the public lectures of the Third World Congress.[2]