The Venture was first issued in 1879 by African American Detroit amateur Benjamin Burnside Pelham (1862-1948). His parents were Robert Pelham and Frances Butcher, free people of color who moved to Michigan to provide their children with a formal education not allowed in their home state of Virginia. Once he completed his schooling in 1878, Pelham found a job working as a messenger at the Detroit Post. His older brother Robert B. Pelham, Jr. (1859-1943) also worked for the Post, and the two also ran an amateur book and job press under the name Pelham Brothers. Click here to access the v. 1, no. 3 (Feb. 1880) issue; bib id 616480
Unlike Herbert Clark's Le Bijou, The Venture was printed by various white amateurs including Jason J. Ackerman and Albert J. Stranger, resulting in disparate issue formats and its self-proclaimed "spasmodic" frequency. Pelham was assisted at various times by associate editors Walter H. Stowers and Gus. T. Kast, who sometimes used the nom de plume "Thomas Gustavo." Walter H. Stowers (1859-1932) was an African American amateur who worked for the Post with the Pelham Brothers. Gus. T. Kast (1863-1923) was a white German American amateur. Many articles in The Venture concern ongoing personal and political factions within the National Amateur Press Association. At least one issue was printed by Benjamin Pelham himself; he declares in the June 1882 issue:
"Thoroughly disgusted with all printers generally and amateur printers particularly, we resolved to print the May Venture ourself. We made an excellent start, and that was all four pages yet remain to be printed. We dare not even guess what time we will finish it, but we do hope to be able to distribute it at the convention."
The Venture was issued through at least March 1883; in that issue, Pelham referred to himself as the secretary of the National Amateur Press Association. In the same year Benjamin and Robert Pelham started issuing the professional paper The Plaindealer that addressed the concerns of Detroit's African American community; it ran until ca. 1893. After that, Pelham held increasingly important positions in Wayne County, Michigan government, eventually serving as Wayne County Accountant, the most powerful non-elective county position. After working as the typesetter of The Plaindealer, Robert Pelham, Jr. earned his law degree from Howard University and had a long career working as a statistician for the United States Census Bureau in Washington, D.C. Walter H. Stowers worked for The Plaindealer and later became a Wayne County clerk and a lawyer. He also co-wrote with William Anderson the novel Appointed: An American Novel first published in 1894 by Detroit Law Print. Co.; an edition edited by Eric Gardner and Brian Sinche was issued in 2019. Gus. T. Kast spent his adult life working as a druggist in Detroit.