The first issue of "St. Nicholas: Scribner's Illustrated Magazine for Girls and Boys" was dated November, 1873. It had 48 pages and a press run of 40,000 copies. Although "St. Nicholas" never reached the high circulation numbers of some other magazines (in the 1890s "The Youth's Companion" had 500,000 subscribers compared with St Nicholas's 100,000 in Christmas 1883 ), within a few years it had acquired numerous competing children's periodicals. Magazines that merged with "St. Nicholas" were "Our Young Folks" and "The Children's Hour" in 1874, "The Schoolday Magazine" and "The Little Corporal" in 1875, and "Wide Awake" in 1878 .