Ladies' Home Journal

Ladies' Home Journal
March 2009 cover of Ladies' Home Journal featuring Ellen DeGeneres
Editor-in-chief Sally Lee
Categories Women's interest, lifestyle
Frequency 11 issues/year (1883-1910; 1911-2014)
24 issues a year (ca. 1910-1911)
Quarterly (2014-present)
Publisher Meredith Corporation
Total circulation
(2011)		 3,267,239[1]
Year founded 1883 (1883)
Country US
Based in Des Moines, Iowa
Language English
Website www.lhj.com
ISSN 0023-7124

Ladies' Home Journal is an American magazine published by the Meredith Corporation. It was first published on February 16, 1883,[2] and eventually became one of the leading women's magazines of the 20th century in the United States. From 1891 it was published in Philadelphia by the Curtis Publishing Company. In 1903, it was the first American magazine to reach one million subscribers.[3]

In the late 20th century, changing tastes and competition from television caused it to lose circulation. Sales of the magazine ensued as the publishing company struggled. On April 24, 2014, Meredith announced it would stop publishing the magazine as a monthly with the July issue, stating it was "transitioning Ladies' Home Journal to a special interest publication".[4] It is now available quarterly on newsstands only, though its website remains in operation.[5]

Ladies' Home Journal was one of the Seven Sisters, as a group of women's service magazines were known. The name referred to seven prestigious women's colleges in the Northeast.

History

The Ladies' Home Journal was developed from a popular double-page supplement in the American magazine Tribune and Farmer titled Women at Home. Women at Home was written by Louisa Knapp Curtis, wife of the magazine's publisher Cyrus H. K. Curtis.[6] After a year it became an independent publication, with Knapp as editor for the first six years. Its original name was The Ladies Home Journal and Practical Housekeeper, but Knapp dropped the last three words in 1886. It rapidly became the leading American magazine of its type, reaching a subscribed circulation of more than one million copies by 1903, the first American magazine to do so.[3]

Edward W. Bok took over the editorship in late 1889, serving until 1919. Among features he introduced was the popular "Ruth Ashmore advice column" written by Isabel Mallon.[7] At the turn of the 20th century, the magazine published the work of muckrakers and social reformers such as Jane Addams. In 1901 it published two articles highlighting the early architectural designs of Frank Lloyd Wright.[8][9]

Bok introduced business practices at the Ladies' Home Journal that contributed to its success: low subscription rates, inclusion of advertising to off-set costs, and reliance on popular content. This operating structure was adopted by men's magazines like McClure's and Munsey's roughly a decade after it had become the standard practice of American women's magazines. Scholars argue that women's magazines, like the Ladies' Home Journal, pioneered these strategies "magazine revolution".[10]

During World War II, the Ladies Home Journal was a particularly favored venue of the government to place articles intended for homemakers, in an effort to keep up morale and support.[11]

In March 1970, feminists held an 11-hour sit-in at the Ladies' Home Journal's office. As a result, they were allowed to produce a section of the magazine that August. They wanted the magazine to recognize a wider variety of choices for women's lives.[12]

The Journal, along with its major rivals, Better Homes and Gardens, Family Circle, Good Housekeeping, McCall's, Redbook and Woman's Day, were long known as the "seven sisters", after the prestigious women's colleges in the Northeast.[13] For decades, the Journal had the greatest circulation of this group, but it fell behind McCall's in 1961.[14] By 1968, its circulation was 6.8 million compared to McCall's 8.5 million. Society was changing and this was reflected in persons' magazine choices.

That year, Curtis Publishing sold the Ladies' Home Journal, along with the magazine The American Home, to Downe Communications for $5.4 million in stock.[15][16] Between 1969 and 1974 Downe was acquired by Charter Company.[17] In 1982 it sold the magazine to Family Media Inc., publishers of Health magazine, when Charter decided to divest its publishing interests.

In 1986, the Meredith Corporation acquired the magazine from Family Media for $96 million.[18][19] By 1998, the Journal's circulation had dropped to 4.5 million.[20]

The magazine debuted an extensive visual and editorial redesign in its March 2012 issue. Photographer Brigitte Lacombe was hired to shoot cover photos, with Kate Winslet appearing on the first revamped issue. The Journal announced that portions of its editorial content would be crowdsourced from readers, who would be fairly compensated for their work.[21] The arrangement was one of the first of its kind among major consumer magazines.[22]

Although the magazine remained very popular, it ran into increasing difficulty attracting advertising. Despite its high subscriber base (3.2 million), it was not a leader in the women's service category. These factors prompted the decision to end monthly publication.[23] The magazine was relaunched as a quarterly.[23] At the same time, the headquarters of the magazine moved from New York City[24] to Des Moines, Iowa.[23] Meredith offered its subscribers the chance to transfer their subscriptions to Meredith's sister publications.[5]

Features

Ladies' Home Journal issue from January 1889

Knapp continued as the magazine's editor till Edward William Bok succeeded her as LHJ editor in 1889. However, she remained involved with the magazine's management, and she also wrote a column for each issue. In 1892, the LHJ became the first magazine to refuse patent medicine advertisements.[25] In 1896, Bok became Louisa Knapp's son-in-law when he married her daughter, Mary Louise Curtis.

The most famous cooking teacher of her time, Sarah Tyson Rorer, served as LHJ's first food editor from 1897 to 1911,[26] when she moved to Good Housekeeping.

In 1936, Mary Cookman, wife of New York Post editor Joseph Cookman, began working at the Ladies' Home Journal. In time, she was named its Executive Editor, and she remained with LHJ till 1963.[27] She was known throughout most of her career as Mary Bass. Cookman died in 1991.

In 1946, the Journal adopted the slogan, "Never underestimate the power of a woman," which it continues to use today.[28]

The magazine's trademark feature is “Can This Marriage Be Saved?” In this popular column, each person of a couple in a troubled marriage explains their view of the problem, a marriage counselor explains the solutions offered in counseling,[29] and the outcome is published. It was written for 30 years, starting in 1953, by Dorothy D. MacKaye under the name of Dorothy Cameron Disney.[30] MacKaye co-founded this column with Paul Popenoe, a founding practitioner of marriage counseling in the U.S. The two jointly wrote a book of the same title in 1960. Both the book and the column drew their material from the extensive case files of the American Institute of Family Relations in Los Angeles, California.[31] MacKaye died in 1992 at the age of 88. Subsequent writers for the feature have included Lois Duncan and Margery D. Rosen.

The illustrations of William Ladd Taylor were featured between 1895 and 1926; the magazine also sold reproductions of his works in oil and water-color.[32]

Editors

  • Louisa Knapp Curtis (1889-1889)
  • Edward William Bok (1890-1919)
  • H. O. Davis (1919-1920)
  • Barton W. Currie (1920-1928)
  • Loring A. Schuler (1928-1935)
  • Bruce Gould and Beatrice Gould (1935-1962)
  • Curtiss Anderson (1962-1964)
  • Davis Thomas (1964-1965)
  • John Mack Carter (1965-1973)
  • Lenore Hershey (1973-1981)
  • Myrna Blyth (1981-2002)[33]
  • Diane Salvatore (2002-2008)
  • Sally Lee (2008-2014)

Writers

Most recent staff

  • Sally Lee, Editor-in-Chief
  • Kate Lawler, Executive Editor
  • Jeffrey Saks, Creative Director
  • Margot Gilman, Deputy Editor
  • Julie Bain, Health Director
  • Erica Metzger, Beauty Director
  • Lorraine Glennon, Senior Editor
  • Louise Sloan, Senior Editor
  • Sue Owen Erneta, Fashion Editor
  • Tara Bench, Food and Entertaining Editor
  • Beth Roehrig, Home Editor
  • Catherine LeFebvre, Senior Online Editor

References

  1. ↑ "eCirc for Consumer Magazines". Audit Bureau of Circulations. June 30, 2011. Retrieved December 1, 2011.
  2. ↑ "Top 100 U.S. Magazines by Circulation" (PDF). PSA Research Center. Retrieved February 6, 2016.
  3. 1 2 Marco Santana (April 24, 2014). "Ladies' Home Journal to Cease Monthly Publication". Des Moines Register. Archived from the original on April 24, 2014. Retrieved April 24, 2014.
  4. ↑ "Meredith Reports Fiscal 2014 Third Quarter And Nine Month Results: Local Media Group Delivers Record Revenues and Operating Profit for a Fiscal Third Quarter" (Press release). Meredith Corporation. April 24, 2014. Archived from the original on April 24, 2014 – via PRNewswire.
  5. 1 2 Cohen, Noam (2014-04-25). "Ladies' Home Journal to Become a Quarterly". New York Times.
  6. ↑ "Saturday Evening Post & Ladies Home Journal". Curtis Publishing Company.
  7. ↑ "Ruth Ashmore" Dead: A Well-Known Writer Succumbs to Pneumonia, Following Grip" (PDF). The New York Times. December 28, 1898.
  8. ↑ "A Home in a Prairie Town". Ladies' Home Journal. February 1901.
  9. ↑ "A Small Home with 'Lots of Room in It'". Ladies' Home Journal. July 1901.
  10. ↑ Waller-Zuckerman, Mary Ellen (Winter 1989). "'Old Homes, in a City of Perpetual Change': Women's Magazines, 1890-1916". The Business History Review. 63 (4): 715–756. doi:10.2307/3115961.
  11. ↑ Emily Yellin (2004). Our Mothers' War. New York: Free Press. p. 23. ISBN 0-7432-4514-8.
  12. ↑ Gibson, Megan (August 12, 2011). "The Ladies' Home Journal Sit-In - A Brief History of Women's Protests". Time. Retrieved January 28, 2015.
  13. ↑ Carmody, D. (August 6, 1990). "Identity Crisis for 'Seven Sisters'". The New York Times. p. D1.
  14. ↑ "Revolt at Curtis". Time. October 16, 1964. pp. 93–94.
  15. ↑ Bedingfield, R. E. (August 15, 1968). "Curtis Publishing Sells 2 Magazines; Downe Paying $5.4-Million in Stock". The New York Times. Business and Finance section, p. 54.
  16. ↑ "Too Few Believers". Time. August 23, 1968. p. 67.
  17. ↑ "Magna charter". Time. June 16, 1980. p. 70.
  18. ↑ "History of Meredith Corporation". Archived from the original on July 3, 2006.
  19. ↑ "Meredith Won't Tinker with Added Magazines". The New York Times (Late City Final ed.). November 25, 1985. p. D2, col 5.
  20. ↑ Kuczynski, A. (November 9, 1998). "Some Consumer Magazines Are Getting Real". The New York Times. p. C1.
  21. ↑ Botelho, Stefanie (January 10, 2012). "Ladies' Home Journal to Move to Reader-Produced Content Model". Folio.
  22. ↑ Ives, Nat (January 9, 2012). "Ladies' Home Journal Lets Readers Write the Magazine". AdvertisingAge.
  23. 1 2 3 Emma Bazilian (April 24, 2014). "Ladies' Home Journal to Cease Monthly Publication". AdWeek. Retrieved February 6, 2016.
  24. ↑ Kathleen L. Endres; Therese L. Lueck (1995). Women's Periodicals in the United States: Consumer Magazines. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 172. ISBN 978-0-313-28631-5. Retrieved February 6, 2016.
  25. ↑ Bok, Edward William (1921). "30. Cleaning Up the Patent-Medicine and Other Evils.". The Americanization of Edward Bok.
  26. ↑ "125 Years of 'Ladies' Home Journal': Food". Ladies' Home Journal. 125 (8). 2008. Archived from the original on April 13, 2010.
  27. ↑ NY Times Obituary September 8, 1991
  28. ↑ "A Look Back in Covers". Ladies Home Journal. 125 (1). 2008. Archived from the original on August 3, 2009.
  29. ↑ Traditionally, the wife's side of the story is told first, followed by the husband's side.
  30. ↑ Weber, Bruce (September 8, 1992). "Dorothy D. MacKaye Dies at 88; Ladies' Home Journal Columnist". The New York Times.
  31. ↑ Popenoe, Paul & Disney, Dorothy Cameron (1960). Can This Marriage Be Saved? (1st ed.). New York: Macmillan. OCLC 1319285. Library of Congress number: 60-8124.
  32. ↑ Chapman, John, III. "William Ladd Taylor: Biography". W.L. Taylor, American Illustrator. Retrieved April 16, 2010.
  33. ↑ Worley, Dwight R. (23 July 2000). "Genetic Genius". Business. The Journal News. White Plains, New York: Gannett. pp. 2&ndash, D. Retrieved 31 July 2018 – via Newspapers.com (Publisher Extra). Part 1 of the article appears at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/22386499/genetic_genius_part_1/ .

Further reading

  • Bogardus, Ralph F. "Tea Wars: Advertising Photography and Ideology in the Ladies' Home Journal in the 1890s." Prospects 16 (1991) pp: 297-322.
  • Damon-Moore, Helen. Magazines for the millions: Gender and commerce in the Ladies' Home Journal and the Saturday Evening Post, 1880-1910 (SUNY Press, 1994)
  • Krabbendam, Hans. The Model Man: A Life of Edward William Bok, 1863-1930 (Rodopi, 2001)
  • Lewis, W. David. "Edward Bok: the editor as entrepreneur." Essays in Economic & Business History 20 (2012).
  • Snyder, Beth Dalia. "Confidence women: Constructing female culture and community in" Just Among Ourselves" and the Ladies' Home Journal." American Transcendental Quarterly 12#4 (1998): 311.
  • Steinberg, Salme Harju. Reformer in the Marketplace: Edward W. Bok and the Ladies' Home Journal (Louisiana State University Press, 1979)
  • Ward, Douglas B. "The Geography of the Ladies' Home Journal: An Analysis of a Magazine's Audience, 1911-55." journalism History 34.1 (2008): 2+
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