In my work as the Serials Cataloger at AAS, I recently came across the Ladies’ Enterprise, a periodical printed in several New England cities (including Worcester!) in the 1850’s. I was immediately drawn in by its subtitle “Edited and published by females” and its decorative masthead depicting women working at a print shop. Further digging brought forth more exciting discoveries. The November 1, 1854, issue claimed that it was “edited, published and printed entirely by ladies” and that soon it would have “one hundred females constantly employed as editors, publishers, contributors, canvassers, etc.” I was sold. This catalog record needed more work! Why had I never heard of this women-run periodical from the 1850’s!? A few short Google searches later and I had my answer.
I came across an essay titled, “George Weeks: The Con Artist Who Launched Women’s Literary Magazines” by John Benedict Buescher. (Has the essay’s title given the mystery away?) The Ladies’ Enterprise, though claiming to be published solely by women, was actually founded and run by a man named George Weeks. He thought a women-published periodical would garner more sympathy and support and would thus be more financially lucrative. He did more than just stretch the truth, however — he purposely scammed investors, employees, and patrons, taking their money with no intent to deliver newspapers beyond the first few issues.
Weeks learned to set type as a teenager and worked as a compositor and editor at several newspapers before publishing his own paper, The Investigator, in Rochester, New York, in 1850. Using the pseudonym “Nel Wix,” The Investigator was published weekly and was filled with gossip and plagiarized material. It lasted only 8 months before Weeks was arrested, fined, and jailed for libel against a local police constable. From Rochester, Weeks, using several different pseudonyms, traveled to various cities including Buffalo, New York City, Albany, Philadelphia, Lowell, Louisville, Lexington, and Cincinnati. In each city, he worked in some capacity in the newspaper business, scamming investors and patrons to varying degrees. He also married women in several cities, abandoning them when his crimes were discovered. Finally, in 1854 he and his latest wife, Ella, made their way to Portland, Maine, where Weeks began the Ladies’ Enterprise.
Weeks did hire several women to act as canvassers, editors, and type setters. He soon opened offices in Worcester and Boston; Providence, Rhode Island; and Manchester, New Hampshire. These offices were managed by both women and men, though Weeks claimed that only women were involved. Buescher notes that in addition to publishing the paper, “Weeks, without any byline, was responsible for [writing] much of it.” (p. 33) In early 1856, Weeks left an employee in charge of his Boston office, took the subscription money, abandoned his wife and infant daughter, and traveled to Albany where he began collecting subscriptions for yet another newspaper!
Back in Boston, Erasmus Addison Norris, a local publisher, purchased a controlling interest in the Ladies’ Enterprise and hired Mary Denison, a popular novelist, as editor. They continued the newspaper using women compositors and editors. Denison wrote frankly about Weeks’ crimes and scandals in the Ladies’ Enterprise. In the May 17, 1856, issue, she describes him in an article titled A scoundrel at work again, as the “foulest and blackest blot upon our common humanity—a professed libertine” and a “deep-dyed rascal.”
While Denison and Norris were saving and legitimizing the Ladies’ Enterprise, Weeks travelled throughout the United States, committing fraud and abandoning women. Eventually he left the country and travelled to Australia, Scotland, India, and England where his trail finally disappears.