This is /u/AncientHistory's very direct specialty, but I can't resist the urge to recommend

• Brian Aldiss, Trillion Year Spree (or its earlier edition, Billion Year Spree), my favorite literary history of sci-fi as a genre. You can just read the pulp chapters, or enjoy how much he loves all of his subject matter

There is also

• Mike Ashley, The Time Machines: The Story of the Science-Fiction Pulp Magazines from the Beginning to 1950, the volume in his series that covers your era of interest