Things past ought not to be extinguished by length of time, nor and admirable be destitute of glory, (qtd. in Herodotus in S. History of the Foundation of the British Museum. Mechanics' Magazine, and Journal of the Mechanics' Institute, 209-14 and S. History of the British Museum. New York Farmer, 343) Visual instruction is a method of reaching the through the eye . . . The present is age of pictures. (Abrams Libraries and Visual Instruction, 235-36) American periodicals recognized that, whether valuable paintings, more widely distributed, inexpensive prints, or reproductive replicating a painting, or rare prints, were important part of the record. collecting and its evil twin were a broad cultural phenomena, which newspapers, magazines, and journals linked to other issues in the development of a people and country. Picture was excessive attention to or employment of of any kind whether wealthy, obsessive individuals were extravagantly spending to purchase original paintings for personal pleasure or public benefit; or educators were extensively using images to teach at the expense of employing textual readings; or publishers were reporting historic and current events with prolifically illustrated tabloids and newspapers. mania was a pet term of the nineteenth-century periodical press. The phrase was commonly derisive but in contrast could also be praise or sarcasm. In 1909, approximately seven decades after the Mechanics' Magazine, and Journal of the Mechanics' Institute and the New York Farmer emphasized the importance of evidence of the past, the professional journal New York Libraries, similarly noted the potential of images to record then instruct in an age of pictures (Abrams 235-36). Americans understood the power of to instruct or influence the mind through the eye, uplift, serve as a souvenir, nostalgically or objectively resurrect the great and admirable actions of the past or just plain entertain. These powerful, even laudatory goals, sometimes drove collectors to obsessive acquisitiveness of images of all types. This article descriptively surveys and analyzes how nineteenth-century American periodicals of all sorts recounted picture collecting particularly concentrating on in a cultural context. Whatever the extent or type of collected, whether unique paintings, rare prints or more commonplace prints or large run printing press produced illustrations and reproductions, the periodical press associated this irrational exuberance with such important and diverse reader interests as gender roles, education (Figure 1), nationalism, greatness, and governance, fine art, social class, urban development and pride, religion, wealth, psychology, philosophy, visual information, and cultural envy of Europe particularly England. Cultural envy reflects our behavior seeking to think like, copy slavishly, or distinguish ourselves and surpass European culture. (Trollope with introduction by Smalley; Grund.) Observers of our efforts to civilize ourselves often criticized Americans as little more than tobacco-spitting rubes. (Trollope with introduction by Smalley, IX.) Yet the publication of information about picture collecting and occurred earlier than but continued after Frances Trollope and other foreign critics wrote; this fairly indicates that Americans were more conscious of visual art and visual information than credited and more civilized or cultured than laconic tobacco users (Dickens American Notes). The articles most often associate picture collecting and with our common cultural heritage with England. No single American newspaper, magazine, or journal dominates the use, narrative and comment about whereas publications devoted to art dominate the narrative and comment about the more restrained and less insidious aspects of art and picture collecting. …