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| Periodical: | Monthly Star and American Horoscope |
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| Summary: |
From Pat Deveney's database:
Monthly Star and American Horoscope, The. Luke Dennis Broughton (on whom see the note under Broughton's Monthly Planet Reader and Astrological Journal) in his recollections of the early astrological activity in America mentions Monthly Horoscope, put out by his eldest brother, Mark A. Broughton, in Philadelphia in 1849. Mark Broughton (Liverpool, 1821 - ?) had earlier published an astrological almanac and ephemeris in Leeds, England, before immigrating to America in November 1847. His career is largely unknown but he was at one time involved with the "American Raphael," Thomas Hague, who had begun publishing Hague’s Horoscope (q.v.), the first astrological journal in America, in Philadelphia in 1838 -- unless Edward Postelthwayte Page’s broadside Irregular Elements of Astrology (1835) be considered the first such. In August 1848 he advertises himself in the Philadelphia Public Ledger as as "Successor to Mr. Hague," and his notice in the same newspaper on April 13, 1849, describes him as "late from Hague’s Office," and teaching astronomy, astrology, phrenology, &c." Their relationship must have been fraught. In another notice in the same magazine in July (said to have been inserted "in justice to Mr. Hague"), Broughton informed the public that he was not connected with "Thomas Hague, the Philadelphia Astrologer, neither in the publication of the present ‘Monthly Horoscope,’ issued by me." Broughton’s original Monthly Horoscope must have expired in 1849 or 1850 and the present journal from its numbering and internal references seems to have begun with vol. 1, no. 5 in March 1851. The journal contained the usual general encomiums on the worth of astrology ("The study of the astral sciences alone enables persons to foretell circumstances enshrouded in the womb of futurity"), a nativity of Napoleon, prognostications on the fate of a missing Atlantic steamer (which proved correct), explanations of some of the finer points of astrological science, attempts to combine astrology and phrenology, etc. Its format paralleled that of earlier journals like those of Hague, Raphael, Zadkiel, in presenting "Good and Evil Days of the Month," "Voice of the Stars," etc. Broughton also, in conjunction with a mysterious "Madam Craven," was advertising his services in casting nativities ($3.00) at the time this journal was being published. He is last heard of in 1858, advertising that he could be consulted in his "Mystic Cabinet" on Linden Street. The journal was still being mentioned in the press in March 1852.
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| Issues: | Monthly Star and American Horoscope V1 N6 Apr 1851 |
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