This article deals with the use of magazines as sources of History, trying to point out its characteristics as a multiple document serving to recover history, also stressing the need of a preliminary, exhaustive critical evaluation, due to the mercantile and/or ideological nature of these publications. Concomitantly, the paper reveals two aspects that deserve an accurate study involving the magazines: the target reading population, which defines its editorial line, and the illustrations, important part of its core, not forgetting to mention the specific sections that complete the publications. The examples studied are magazines issued in São Paulo City, within the period 1890/1920.
magazine; illustration; São Paulo City History
