As early as 1863 Curtis began publishing in Portland a local weekly called Young America. When fire destroyed his plant, he moved to Boston, where he worked as a messenger, an advertising solicitor, and as publisher of The People's Ledger, a magazine. He moved to Philadelphia in 1876 and continued there the publication of the magazine. In 1879 he founded The Tribune and Farmer, from the women's section of which he formed a new magazine, the Ladies' Home Journal. In 1890 Curtis organized the Curtis Publishing Company. Later acquisitions included The Saturday Evening Post (1897); The Country Gentleman (1911); the Philadelphia Public Ledger (1913), which he expanded to include the Evening Ledger (1914); the Philadelphia Press and The North American, morning newspapers that he merged with the Curtis papers (1925); The Evening Post (1924); and The Philadelphia Inquirer (1930).