SOURCE: Zuckerman, Mary Ellen. “Birth of the Big Six.” In A History of Popular Women's Magazines in the United States, 1792-1995, pp. 3-23. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998.

Over fifty girls are employed to keep the subscription books during each day and a dozen others come to work at six p.m. and remain three hours every night.

—Ladies' Home Journal, 1887¹

The death of Godey's Lady's Book publisher Louis Godey in 1878 and that of its editor Sarah Josepha Hale the following year symbolized the end of an era for women's journals. This queen of the antebellum women's magazines had fallen on hard times, unable to keep up with the changing interests of readers. A spate of new women's magazines appeared in the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s. Changes in market demand, print technology, transportation systems, and financing worked to place magazines in the hands of ever greater numbers of readers. As Americans gained more leisure time and became more literate, they turned to magazines for education and relaxation. The time when a circulation of 150,000 (Godey's peak, obtained in the 1860s) could be considered an astounding success was past.

By the end of the nineteenth century, several journals had emerged as leaders, titles that would go on to top circulation charts in the first half of the twentieth century. Known as “The Big Six,” these magazines led in circulation, attracted large advertising dollars, and were treasured in the homes of thousands of loyal readers, causing journalist Charles Hansen Towne to term them “old homes in a city of perpetual change,” referring both to the time of their founding and the intimate role they played in readers' lives.² These journals, familiar to so many women, were Delineator, McCall's, Ladies' Home Journal, Woman's Home Companion, Good Housekeeping, and Pictorial Review.

The Gilded Age entrepreneurs engaged in these ventures spent little time on thoughts of pioneering an industry. They focused on the more immediate goal of making money. Yet individuals such as Cyrus Curtis and Jones Wilder, by creating and nourishing journals such as Ladies' Home Journal and Delineator, ended up leading the magazine industry. These publishers capitalized on technological changes and improvements in transportation, enabling them to reach large audiences. They kept prices down by attracting national advertising. They responded to the preferences of readers. The methods these individuals employed changed the shape of the magazine business as a whole, and began setting the pattern sustained by women's publications throughout the twentieth century.

In these decades the presence of a clever publisher and a distinct market demand for the existence of a publication proved the key components for survival. Once established, editorial talent, appeal to advertisers, and the willingness of a financially healthy owner to invest in the magazine moved to the fore as competitive factors. But initially the publisher played a pivotal role. Most founders of the winning magazines had prior business experience, either specifically in publishing or in running a company.

Readers of these new journals generally came from the whole spectrum of middle-class females, a shift from ante-bellum audiences. Like their predecessors these readers sought entertainment and amusement. But they also looked for concrete information that could assist them in their job of overseeing the household. Such home management advice formed the foundation of one group of successful journals. Ladies' Home Journal, Woman's Home Companion, and Good Housekeeping started as women's advice page supplements to newspapers or as publications directed at the home in general, filled with homemaking tips and service departments.

From another direction, a different type of publication arose, created to promote the fashions of pattern manufacturers. Initially making little pretense of being other than advertising vehicles, by the beginning of the twentieth century several of these fashion publications, including Delineator, McCall's, and Pictorial Review, had expanded to focus on women's concerns more broadly defined.

Both types of journals targeted the same group of educated, middle-class white women. Both developed editorial content, price, and distribution channels with these customers in mind. Eventually, each kind of publication influenced the other, with the pattern sheets enlarging to include household advice, stories, and essays, and the home journals forced to add fashion news and patterns.

In the magazines' early years, editors of necessity published a wide variety of material, some sent in by readers, some written by the owners, some penned by professional writers. This mix inevitably led to the inclusion of diverse viewpoints, some contradictory.

Nothing exposes so clearly the business nature of mass circulation women's magazines as their origins. These beginnings also highlight the extent to which the vision of woman as consumer propelled these publications. The depth of this view varied from journal to journal, but its seed, implanted in all the titles from their inception, took root and flourished on the diet of national advertising all the publications came to rely upon. The gendering of magazine audiences had been present since the late eighteenth century; such gendering of consumption had not. The new journals rested on females' role as consumers and advertisers' desire to reach these consumers.

A review of these publications' early years reveals their commonalities and differences, as well as their departures from the practices of ante-bellum journals. In the first decades of the mass circulation women's magazine business, the titles appeared diverse, various, and eclectic. Over time, however, they increasingly came to resemble one another.

THE LADIES' HOME JOURNAL

The Ladies' Home Journal and its first publisher and editors, Cyrus Curtis, Louisa Knapp Curtis and Edward Bok, led in creating the new women's magazine. As publisher, Cyrus Curtis played a crucial role in the Journal's early years. His background, manner of starting the Journal, and subsequent promotion of the magazine all capitalized on changes occurring in the publishing industry, the advertising business, and among the American public. Before other publishers Curtis realized that large circulations could be maintained at a low cost to subscribers by the use of national advertisers. He tested this theory first with the Ladies' Home Journal, later with the Saturday Evening Post. He employed sound financial management, publicized the Journal extensively, and solicited advertisements for his own magazine, building the Journal into a top circulator. Talented editors Louisa Knapp Curtis and Edward Bok ensured that Curtis' product matched his promotion.

Curtis came to the Journal with an extensive background in advertising and publishing.³ Born in 1850 in Portland, Maine, Cyrus H. K. Curtis had created and distributed a weekly paper while still a young teen. After high school Curtis left Portland for Boston, where he clerked in a dry goods store, using his spare time to solicit for an ad agency. Curtis founded a fiction magazine, then worked as advertising manager for the Philadelphia Press. When he and a partner started The Tribune and Farmer, a four-page agricultural weekly, Curtis saw clearly the benefits gained from large-scale advertising, as farm journals were among the first publications to carry extensive advertising.

In 1875 Curtis married Louisa Knapp.⁴ Mrs. Curtis showed her value as a partner in a realm beyond the domestic. The Tribune and Farmer carried a column directed at farmer's wives, titled “Women and Home.” Like many women's pages of the day, this department published material clipped from press exchanges; although uneven in quality, these second-hand items provided a fast, cheap way of filling space. When Mrs. Curtis commented disparagingly about the column, Curtis offered its editorship to his wife. She accepted and rapidly improved selection of the material, even writing some articles and household tips herself. Mrs. Curtis concerned herself with what her readers (housewives like herself) wanted and gave them articles designed to help them in their work in the home and as consumers.

Mrs. Curtis' women's department became increasingly popular, as letters sent in by readers attested. Observing that an actively interested audience existed for this home-oriented material, and realizing the desirability of these readers to advertisers, publisher Curtis decided to expand the column to a full page. Curtis then went further, transforming the women's section into a monthly supplement to the Tribune and Farmer, at a cost to readers of fifty cents a year.

The first issue of this supplement, the Ladies' Home Journal, “conducted by Mrs. Louisa Knapp,” appeared in December 1883. The name came into being inadvertently. Curtis told the printer that the new sheet was “sort of a ladies' journal,” and the engraver, drawing a little house in the middle of the title to indicate the contents, added the word “home,” thus producing one of the best known titles in U. S. magazine history.⁵ Eight pages of small folio sheets printed on cheap paper, with a woodcut picture on the front comprised the first issues. Contents included fiction, household hints and recipes, fashion notes, and articles on gardening, needlework, and handcrafts.⁶ From its first issue the Ladies' Home Journal included advertising.

Success came to the new publication and it boasted a circulation of 25,000 by the end of its first year (the Tribune and Farmer had taken five years to reach a circulation of 48,000). Sensing greater good fortune to come, Curtis decided to devote all his energy to the new title. He sold out his share of Tribune and Farmer. In October 1884, the Curtis Publishing Co. became owner of Ladies' Home Journal.

Throughout, Curtis remained a consummate businessman. He saw the Journal as a media product filling a void in the marketplace. Godey's still existed but had not prospered in the post-Civil War era. Another ante-bellum success, Peterson's, continued to appear, but failed to aim accurately at the middle-class audience of housewives who formed the largest portion of readers. Other women's magazines emerged, as entrepreneurs discovered this fertile market. Yet Cyrus Curtis exploited this market most fully, through innovative promotion and management techniques.

On the business side, Curtis focused on three areas: raising the circulation of the magazine, increasing advertising about the magazine, and soliciting advertising for inclusion in the magazine. One of his main stratagems to increase circulation involved clubbing, an especially effective technique for a new publication. At the ordinary rate, the Journal cost fifty cents per year. Curtis offered a group price of ＄1.00 a year for a “club” of four women: each member paid only twenty-five cents for the subscription at a time when Godey's cost ＄3.00 a year, Harper's Bazaar ＄4.00, and Peterson's ＄1.50. Delineator and the Queen of Fashion (McCall's) were still primarily pattern publications. His main competition, then as later, came from Woman's Home Companion and Good Housekeeping, both near to the Journal in price and content. The Companion matched Curtis' rate, also selling for fifty cents annually during the 1880s. Although Good Housekeeping cost more, it competed with Curtis' publication in its focus on the household; however, its ＄2.50 a year price made it significantly more expensive than the Journal. Curtis' pricing tactic worked and within six months (mid-1884), circulation rose to 50,000, 90 percent of it at the club rate.⁷

To publicize his magazine Curtis turned to the advertising agency of N. W. Ayer & Sons.⁸ Curtis believed strongly in the efficacy of advertising; he saw it “not as an expense but as an investment: it creates an asset in the business in name and goodwill, and as such cannot be charged as an expense.”⁹ His initial outlay of ＄400 for promotional advertising proved effective; circulation jumped to 100,000 by the end of 1884. The next expenditure for advertising, larger than the first, yielded another doubling of circulation in six months: subscriptions reached 200,000.

Curtis actively solicited for advertising to appear in his journal, asking for ＄200 a page the first year.¹⁰ He succeeded and by 1888, the Ladies' Home Journal contained three times as much advertising as any other women's publication.¹¹ This enviable state actually gave Curtis financial problems in his early years when circulation rose more rapidly than he could increase ad rates. The Journal proved popular with advertisers in part because it reached so many potential consumers, but also because former adman Curtis understood the advertiser's point of view. Curtis revealed this empathy in a speech to advertisers:

Do you know why we publish the Ladies' Home Journal? The editor thinks it is for the benefit of the American woman. That is an illusion, but a very proper one for him to have. But I will tell you; the real reason, the publisher's reason, is to give you people who manufacture things that American women want and buy a chance to tell them about your products.¹²

Curtis recognized women's new role as purchasing agents for the home, as well as advertisers' need to reach these female consumers.

In editorial matters Curtis appreciated the need to print high quality material to retain readers initially attracted by promotions and club subscriptions. He also understood the advertising value of a well-known writer's name. Acquiring the work of celebrated authors could be difficult. Other publications had already contracted for the work of many popular story tellers. Also, some writers believed that appearing in an inexpensive household publication such as the Journal would hurt their reputation. Curtis attacked these problems with spirit, traveling to the homes of desired writers, talking with them personally, overcoming their objections. He persuaded “Marion Harland” (Mary Virginia Terhune), well-known author of domestic tales, to give him a story. The piece cost ＄90, horrifying Mrs. Curtis, who knew the precarious financial state of the magazine. Curtis remained unalarmed, next visiting an egg-beater manufacturer who admired Mrs. Harland. Curtis convinced the merchant to place ＄90 worth of advertising in the Journal. Curtis captured Louisa May Alcott by promising ＄100 to her favorite charity for an article. By such ploys he signed up writers whom he then advertised in his “List of Famous Contributors.”¹³ Household departments and fashion pages still occupied the majority of the magazine, however.

By the spring of 1886, circulation reached 270,000. With improvements in the magazine's quality Curtis decided that he no longer needed to offer discounts. He discontinued the clubbing rates. This signified a major shift, since almost all his readers had subscribed at the discounted rate. However, subscriptions continued to pour in at the fifty-cents rate, with readers attracted both by the list of famous authors Curtis kept in the public's eye and by the newly enlarged magazine. Curtis also spent ＄20,000 on a newspaper advertising campaign and began using premium offers to attract subscribers, publishing a 20-page catalog describing the gifts available.¹⁴ Circulation rose to 400,000, then 440,000, by 1889. The advertising rate commanded by the Journal increased to ＄2.00 an agate line.

During these six years Louisa Knapp Curtis edited the Ladies' Home Journal, aided by two female assistants.¹⁵ Louisa Knapp Curtis' ability as a talented editor played a key role in the initial success of the Journal. She unerringly selected articles, household advice, fashions, and stories with appeal. She paid attention to her readers and encouraged their responses, saying “Try to write to us goodnaturedly, but if you cannot, then write to us anyway.”¹⁶ Upon interviewing her a reporter for the trade magazine The Journalist described Mrs. Curtis as

an editor who has proven her natural ability to win the loyal love and constancy of her readers, holding the half a million subscribers which might be obtained, perhaps by a liberal outlay of money in advertising, but could never be retained but for Mrs. Knapp's wonderful instinct as to the effect of an article and appreciation of the unspoken demand of the reading public.¹⁷

The reporter, a female, went on to reassure that “Mrs. Knapp is first a true woman, and next an editor.” The article stressed Louisa Knapp Curtis' homemaking skills and devotion as a wife and mother. But Louisa Knapp Curtis' competence and accomplishment as an editor were demonstrated by both this coverage in a professional trade journal and her salary: ＄10,000 a year, more than any other female journalist for similar work. When the reporter questioned husband and publisher Cyrus Curtis on that point, he replied that “the services of an editor who can hold nearly a half million subscribers is worth fully the amount which is paid her.”¹⁸

However, maternal responsibilities to her daughter weighed heavily on Mrs. Curtis, and by 1889 she wanted to step down from her editorial post. She did so secure in the knowledge that by then the Journal had firmly established a place in both its readers' hearts and the marketplace.

In fact, the Journal had prospered so greatly that Cyrus Curtis decided once again to upgrade its quality. As of July 1, 1889, he doubled the Journal's size to thirty-two pages, added a cover, and raised the price to ＄1.00 a year. To retain circulation Curtis advertised extensively in religious weeklies, general interest magazines, and some other women's journals.¹⁹ Ad agent N. W. Ayer believed in Curtis' business ability, so gave him credit for the ads the agency placed. Ayer also guaranteed the credit Curtis received from his papermakers, worth ＄100,000.

The financial gamble paid off, and when all the fifty-cents subscriptions ran out in 1890, Curtis had a circulation of 488,000, all at ＄1.00 per year.²⁰ Curtis never doubted the wisdom of this pricing shift, calculated to acquire a slightly higher class readership; his business and advertising skill, coupled with the necessary financial credit, allowed him to pull off this transformation. He initially had used a penetration pricing policy typical when introducing a product; he shifted to a more profitable and selective pricing strategy when he knew consumers had tried his product and developed loyalty to it.

With the business side of the magazine expanding under his skilled hands, Curtis needed someone to replace Mrs. Curtis. His choice was a man who, like Curtis himself, had worked in advertising and publishing. Edward Bok had little experience editing for a female audience. Yet in teaming up with Cyrus Curtis in 1889, Bok took up where Mrs. Curtis left off, building the Ladies' Home Journal into the largest circulating magazine in the United States.

WOMAN'S HOME COMPANION

The Ladies' Home Journal faced competition, most directly from the Woman's Home Companion. The forerunner of this title appeared in 1874, when Frederick and S. L. Thorpe of Cleveland, Ohio, began publishing a monthly called The Home. Only eight folio pages in length, The Home served primarily as a mail order paper, supported by numerous ads. It also carried some fiction, supplemented with housekeeping information.²¹ This combination proved attractive to readers and the journal prospered. It lived through several incarnations and the hands of a second owner before Mast, Crowell & Kirkpatrick, of Springfield, Ohio, its publishers for the next fifteen years, took over in 1883. Circulation of the Home Companion, its name at the time, totaled 18,000. In describing its existence up until that point, the new owners termed it “a waif on the troubled sea of Western journalism,” a situation they planned to remedy.²²

Mast, Crowell & Kirkpatrick had the publishing and financial expertise to help the Home Companion. Phineas Price Mast was a successful manufacturer of agricultural machinery. His nephew, Thomas Kirkpatrick, had persuaded Mast to publish a farm magazine advertising Mast's agricultural goods. Former newspaperman John S. Crowell served as general manager and Kirkpatrick became editor of the journal, called Farm and Fireside.²³ It first appeared in 1877 and by 1879 Mast had organized the separate publishing firm of Mast, Crowel & Kirkpatrick.

Farm and Fireside succeeded and the firm moved to larger quarters in 1879.²⁴ The partners' interest in the Home Companion stemmed from the popularity of Farm and Fireside's women's page; like Cyrus Curtis, Kirkpatrick and Crowell predicted that a magazine devoted wholly to the interests of women and the home would flourish.²⁵

Acknowledging their commitment to the women's market, the firm changed the journal's name in 1886 to Ladies' Home Companion. Gradually the quality of this semimonthly journal improved. It carried better fiction than before, illustrated by woodcuts. The magazine also included housekeeping departments and articles on beauty, manners, health, and fashion. News about women's clubs and information about home study and university extension work appeared.²⁶ As had the original Home Companion, its descendant carried a large amount of mail-order advertising. The publication cost fifty cents annually.

By 1888 circulation had passed 40,000. It doubled the next year, and by 1890 more than 100,000 subscribers took the Ladies' Home Companion (compared to almost 500,000 buying Ladies' Home Journal). The Companion's circulation rise continued through the nineties, hitting 220,000 by 1898. As the magazine expanded and prospered, Mast built new headquarters equipped with the most modern presses. The constant support and stability of the publishers helped make the Ladies' Home Companion a success.²⁷

In October 1893 Ladies' Home Companion raised its price from fifty cents to ＄1.00 annually, matching its chief rival, the Ladies' Home Journal. The earlier disparity in content quality between these two competitors (with the Journal always a clear winner) slowly began to diminish. The Companion's paper and print quality began to improve. In 1891 the pages had been enlarged. The first formal front cover appeared on the magazine on December 15, 1891, its Christmas issue.²⁸ With increases in readership and revenues, the Companion expanded its content, augmenting the departments and beginning to print serials. Fashions and dressmaking received more space than previously and patterns became available as premiums; competition from the pattern catalogs had forced the Companion to include dress patterns.²⁹ Non-mail-order advertising increased, a function both of manufacturers' growing interest in advertising and of the Companion's swelling circulation.

In March, 1896, Ladies' Home Companion switched from semi-monthly to monthly publication. The following year, the owners changed the title to Woman's Home Companion, in part to differentiate the magazine from the Ladies' Home Journal.³⁰

As circulation expanded so did the publishing facilities. In 1891 fifty feet had been added to the Springfield plant. A further addition in 1903 brought the printing capacity up to 450,000 sixty-four-page copies.³¹

By 1898, when Mast's name disappeared from the cover page, Woman's Home Companion was well established. The publishers built an effective editorial formula consisting of home service departments, fiction, and nonfiction articles reporting on society, travel, and leisure.³² Support for these editorial pages came from the ever growing number of advertisements making the magazine prosperous.

Arthur Vance took over the editorial seat in 1900, set to pilot the successfully launched title into the twentieth century. The publishers continued to invest money in the magazine; as one staffer wrote in 1904, “Everyone says the magazine is improving. Its great fun to work on it and to feel that there's plenty of money behind it.”³³ The thriving journal caught the eye of another experienced business person, New York City printer Joseph P. Knapp. Knapp bought a majority interest in the Crowell Publishing Co. in 1906 for ＄750,000 from John Crowell. Knapp's technological expertise as well as financial resources allowed the magazine to maintain its prosperous course.³⁴

GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

Good Housekeeping began as a journal devoted to the home, a focus it retained even more strongly than its competitors. Started in 1885 and published from Holyoke, Massachusetts, Good Housekeeping carried the subtitle, “A Family Journal Conducted in the Interest of the Higher Life of the Household.”³⁵ Publisher and editor Clark W. Bryan was an experienced newspaper editor, printer, and publisher. He already put out a number of publications, including the trade journal Paper World, when he started Good Housekeeping.³⁶

Good Housekeeping appeared semimonthly, contained thirty-two pages, and initially cost the subscriber ＄2.50 annually, an amount higher than that charged by competing women's journals. The contents, reflecting the interests of Bryan and the availability of material, ranged widely from fiction and poetry to puzzles and columns for readers' questions. Household tips, articles on cooking, home decoration, dressmaking, and fashion filled much of the publication.³⁷ Bryan encouraged readers to write in with questions, suggestions, poetry, stories, and household advice. The magazine printed assurances to readers that their contributions would be given careful attention: “The winnowing of the wheat from the chaff will be done with tender care and kind consideration.”³⁸

In part, this policy of including readers' offerings showed good business judgement, enticing subscribers with the promise that they too could participate in the creation of this magazine. However, it also reflected the scarcity of material; readers' submissions in fact helped fill out the journal. Contributors had a real sense that the magazine was theirs, an enterprise they took part in, an arena where they were respected as experts on the topics (home and housekeeping) they knew best. Since Good Housekeeping paid its readers for their writing, it also provided a way to earn money.³⁹ All the women's magazines eventually fostered such active participation on the part of readers. Such contributions formed crucial links between readers and the magazine world, and worked to heighten the importance and influence of the journals in the lives of their turn-of-the-century readers.

Material submitted by its readers formed only a part of Good Housekeeping's content. Nonreader contributors included writers Marion Harland and Catherine Owen (writing a column called “Keeping House Well on ＄10.00 a Week”) and cooking expert Maria Parloa.⁴⁰

By 1891 Good Housekeeping had shifted to monthly issuance, the subscription price had dropped to ＄2.00 per year, and the average length ran to fifty pages, smaller in size than previously. The content continued to span a fairly broad range of interests, including fiction, poetry, illustrations, songs, and nonfiction articles. Small amounts of advertising appeared, primarily for mail order products. Circulation at this time stood at a modest 25,000, but by 1895 had jumped to 55,000.⁴¹

Owner Bryan became ill and eventually committed suicide in 1898. Although his other publications died, Good Housekeeping lived on. John Pettigrew purchased the magazine, delivering it into the hands of his printer, a common practice. Within two years the printer, George Chamberlain, sold it to E. H. Phelps, head of Phelps Publishing Co., a concern with offices in New York City and Springfield, Massachusetts, which already put out four agricultural journals.

Backed by this experienced publishing firm, Good Housekeeping survived, in large part because loyal customers continued to purchase the magazine (now edited by James Eaton Tower), valuing the useful household information it printed. William Randolph Hearst, beginning to put together a media empire, saw Good Housekeeping as an attractive property and his company purchased it in 1911 for ＄300,000 in bonds.⁴² The promotional, distribution, and editorial clout of the Hearst organization would enable Good Housekeeping to capitalize on the strengths it had already developed.

DELINEATOR

Delineator had the earliest start of the Big Six women's magazines. Founded in 1873 Delineator began as an advertising catalog directed at women, created to showcase the patterns of Ebenezer Butterick. Delineator's early years serve as a prototype for the evolution of several women's magazines begun to advertise patterns.

Tailor Ebenezer Butterick had developed the idea of making men's shirt patterns out of stiff paper. Butterick placed his patterns on the market in 1863. They proved popular and Butterick soon began creating patterns for children's and women's clothes.⁴³ The increased availability of Elias Howe's sewing machine, invented in the 1840s, contributed to the patterns' rapid acceptance. The combination of the sewing machine and Butterick's tissue-paper patterns (sized and notched for better fitting by 1867) simplified the whole process of home dressmaking, bringing fashion and style to women outside the wealthy classes. While not cheap, Butterick's patterns were affordable to most middle-class women in the United States. And as pattern production increased, prices declined.⁴⁴

Initially, Butterick sold the patterns entirely by mail. But by 1869 the distribution channels had enlarged; department stores carried the Butterick patterns and the Butterick Co. itself opened branch offices. Butterick shifted his operations from Fitchburg, Massachusetts, to New York City, opening a sales office in 1864. As the organization grew Butterick hired two men to help him: Jones Warren Wilder, who became the distribution agent and marketing genius of the firm, and Mrs. Butterick's brother, Albert W. Pollard, office secretary.⁴⁵ In 1867 these three men became partners in the reorganized firm of E. Butterick & Co. Under Wilder's influence the company confined its attention to the profitable women's and children's fashions.

To promote and advertise its wares, Butterick Co. needed a catalog. It first put out a publication featuring gentlemen's fashions. Then, in 1867, the company created The Ladies' Quarterly Report of Broadway Fashions. The following year Butterick Co. started another fashion journal, The Metropolitan Monthly. Two-thirds of the magazine carried fashions, with the remaining articles devoted to fashion, women's role, and relations between the sexes.⁴⁶ These catalogs so effectively advertised the patterns across the country that by 1871 Butterick Co. had sold 6 million patterns. By the 1870s Butterick Co. worked out of 100 branch offices and had 1,000 agencies selling patterns across the United States and Canada. By 1876 the company had opened offices in London, Paris, and Vienna.⁴⁷

Recognizing the efficacy of promoting through periodicals, in 1872 Butterick Co. planned a new fashion monthly, based on a merger of The Metropolitan Monthly and The Ladies' Quarterly Report. The combination resulted in The Delineator, A Monthly Magazine Illustrating European and American Fashions, which appeared in January 1873. Named after a tailor's pattern used to cut clothes in different sizes, the Delineator consisted of forty-eight pages devoted to fashions, at an annual cost of ＄1.00 (fifteen cents for a single issue). The cover, identical for every issue, featured a decorative archway, the title of the magazine, and the name of E. Butterick & Co. printed prominently. Inside, styles appeared according to age of the wearer and the type of clothing, illustrated by woodcuts. Few advertisements other than for Butterick's own patterns and products filled the pages.⁴⁸

Delineator grew in popularity. Women wanted both fashion news and the patterns enabling them to dress in the latest modes. Since the tissue paper patterns were a relatively new product, the journal contained explicit guidelines for users; “Instructions for Selecting Patterns” remained a feature of the magazine for many years.⁴⁹

By 1876 circulation had reached 30,000, with new subscriptions coming in at the rate of five hundred per day.⁵⁰ By 1880 annual subscriptions had climbed to 85,000, a circulation increase of one and a half times within a four year period.⁵¹ To entice readers to the new publication and to promote its other business, Butterick gave away patterns as subscription premiums. This strategy increased brand and name awareness for both products.

Editorial duties at Delineator had been taken over by Robert S. O'Loughlin, Jones Wilder's son-in-law.⁵² Throughout the late nineteenth century, however, Delineator adhered to the policy followed by many journals of omitting the names of editors in the magazine itself. Thus editorial changes remained unknown to the readers.

The 1880s brought changes in Delineator. In 1885 H. F. Montgomery became the new editor, with Charles Dwyer working as an associate editor. The parent company also changed; in 1881 the firm reorganized under the name Butterick Publishing Company, LTD, reflecting the significant publishing interests of the pattern organization. At this point Ebenezer Butterick, now a very wealthy man, separated himself from most of the work of the firm.

Butterick Co. continued to publish several other fashion magazines in the 1880s and 90s, all promoting the fashion business.⁵³ These other publications undoubtedly helped the survival of Delineator, as they provided more expertise in magazine operations, more financial steadiness, and greater name recognition for Butterick publications. Delineator proved the strongest of the group and the title that survived the longest.

Butterick Co. also purchased two other pattern companies and their fashion magazines to forestall competition. The Standard Fashion Co. founded Designer in 1887 to promote its fashions; in 1900 Butterick Co. bought the company and added Designer to its stable of publications. And in 1902 Butterick Co. purchased the New Idea Pattern Co. and its Woman's Magazine. Both new publications emphasized service departments and were priced slightly under Delineator. When selling advertising space the company bundled together Delineator, Designer, and New Idea Woman's Magazine as the Butterick Trio.

Charles Dwyer took over as editor of Delineator in 1885, a position he held until 1905. Under Dwyer the magazine expanded; by 1894 each issue of Delineator averaged between 150 and 200 pages. It continued to publish patterns, fashion, and sketches of clothes. But it no longer remained simply a fashion magazine, now carrying articles on travel, flower arranging, and beauty as well as columns on household affairs.⁵⁴ By 1894 average monthly circulation reached 500,000.⁵⁵ Throughout this period Delineator maintained its price of fifteen cents an issue, ＄1.00 for a yearly subscription. By 1902 Delineator appeared in five languages, and the journal claimed to have “the largest paid circulation of any Fashion magazine in the world.”⁵⁶

Butterick initially had targeted Delineator to upper-middle-class readers. In the 1880s Delineator had boasted that, along with Godey's Lady's Book and Harper's Bazar, it was read by the elite. And in 1895 its advertising agency still wrote, “Is it any wonder that its circulation reaches a large proportion of the wealthiest and most appreciative feminine buyers of the country?”⁵⁷ Some of Butterick's other journals targeted women lower down in the middle-class, as evidenced in the patterns shown. For example, some publications carried no designs for formal evening clothes. Delineator, on the other hand, featured styles for elegant evening dress in its early years. But by the turn of the century these distinctions among the Butterick publications had lessened, and Delineator was clearly aimed at the entire middle-class market.⁵⁸

The Butterick Co. used Delineator to advertise other goods it produced. These included sewing tools such as embroidery scissors, button-hole cutters, and dressmaker shears, and beauty aids like manicure scissors and cuticle and corn knives. Butterick also advertised its other publications in Delineator.⁵⁹ Predictably, in a magazine created to promote its publishers' own products, advertising for other company's goods started out sparsely. In the first years ads other than for Butterick Co. wares appeared only on the inside back cover of the Delineator. Products advertised related to fashion and dressmaking, with Milward's Helix Needles, Furs by F. Boss & Brothers, and Clark's Spool Cotton all showing up. By the eighties and nineties more ads had appeared, with many small notices crammed on to the last three pages of the magazine. Most ads featured clothing, with corsets predominating. C. G. Gunther & Sons Seal Skins consistently took the inside front cover. The back pages also carried the Butterick premium offers. The premium offers remained fixed in number, but the manufacturers' ads grew in quantity.⁶⁰

This increase in ads was due in part to the efforts of newly hired ad manager John Adams Thayer who came to Butterick in the 1890s. Extensive ad campaigns appeared in newspapers and magazines to promote the Delineator. Billboards shouted forth Thayer's slogan “Just Get ‘The Delineator.’” The company spent ＄100,000 spreading this phrase, targeting advertisers and readers.⁶¹

Jones Wilder, who had become President of the company in 1881, died in 1894. Three trustees, O'Loughlin, Pollard and Salem Wilder (brother of Jones) took over management of the company. They expanded operations, invested in the magazines and ran the company profitably. In 1906 lawyer George Wilder, Jones' son, bought out the trustees and took over ownership of the company. George Wilder was firmly committed to the publishing side of the Butterick business. He bought additional publications, such as Everybody's and Adventure. He willingly spent to improve the magazines, including the company's flagship, Delineator, increasing the size, circulation, and advertising revenue of the journal enormously in the years after his takeover.⁶²

MCCALL'S

Delineator was not the only broad interest women's magazine to evolve out of a pattern catalog. McCall's experienced a similar transformation. Started shortly after Delineator, McCall's also owed its existence to a tailor, James McCall. Its raison d'etre too was to advertise fashions. And, like Delineator, McCall's succeeded because of a strong publisher and his organization.

Born in Scotland, James McCall immigrated to the United States upon completion of his training as a tailor. He served as an agent for the “Royal Chart” system for designing patterns, then, with the assistance of his wife, set up his own pattern drafting business. Like Ebenezer Butterick a few years earlier, the McCalls quickly saw the need for a fashion catalog to advertise their patterns. Their first fashion sheet, The Queen: Illustrating McCall's Bazar Glove-Fitting Patterns, appeared in the fall of 1873, nine months after the inaugural issue of Delineator.⁶³

The Queen initially contained four small folio pages, featuring woodcuts of the styles of McCall's patterns. Its pink pages caught the reader's eye. In space not given over to McCall's patterns, the editor ran notes about current fashions. Initially the paper appeared ten times a year, skipping the summer months.

Like Butterick, the pattern business of the McCall Co. prospered. Their patterns differed from others because they left unspecified the seam allowance for garments, allowing women to adapt the pattern to the peculiarities of their own figures.⁶⁴ Despite the advantages inherent in this superior product, the McCalls recognized the promotional value of their pattern catalog and they began adding supplements. By the late 1880s, for the subscription price of ＄1.00, a homemaker could receive a combined package of (1) ten monthly issues of The Queen; (2) two numbers of the Bazar Dressmaker, showing illustrations of the latest fashions from New York, Paris, London, Berlin, and Vienna; (3) spring and fall fashion catalogs; and (4) two colored fashion plates. Keeping desirable fashions in front of women's eyes, while simultaneously showing them how to make those very fashions by using McCall patterns matched the strategy employed by Butterick Co., capitalizing on the synergy existing between the pattern and fashion magazine businesses.

James McCall died in 1884, and his wife became president of the company. Mrs. George Bladsworth (better known by her pen name of “May Manton”) filled the editorial spot, a position she held until 1891. Upon Mrs. Bladsworth's accession the magazine claimed circulation of 300,000.⁶⁵ Its pages had been reduced in size, but increased in number to eight. The journal still consisted primarily of fashions and patterns. Mrs. Bladsworth broadened this content to include more household information, homemaking tips, and ideas on handiwork. In 1891 the magazine acquired a new name, becoming The Queen of Fashion. The previous year the journal had been enlarged to twelve pages, and for the first time readers could buy this magazine separately, at the comparatively low price of thirty cents a year. Mrs. Bladsworth's husband George had taken over the presidency of the McCall Co. in 1890 but proved ineffective, and in 1892 Page & Ringot purchased the company. At this time audited circulation figures had fallen to 12,000. The lack of a strong, steady publisher slowed the success of the publication. This drop in circulation may also reflect inflation in the earlier figures, reported by the publisher but unverified. Decreases in the fashion magazine's circulation affected the pattern business of the company as well.

A change in leadership was clearly needed and in 1892 Mrs. Bladsworth yielded the editorial role to Miss Frances Benson, who held the position for four years. No notification of this switch appeared in the pages of the magazine.

In 1893 businessman James Henry Ottley took over the McCall Co. and the company's fortunes began improving. Ottley raised the magazine's subscription price to fifty cents annually and increased the number of pages to between sixteen and thirty per issue.⁶⁶ He accelerated the trend toward content expansion, although this change occurred more slowly than it had in Delineator. Fiction, one of the major components of women's magazines, appeared for the first time in 1894, the result of a contest offering a ten-dollar prize. Columns on a variety of topics including children's subjects, literary notes, health and beauty, and foreign travel began appearing.⁶⁷

Ottley cut pattern prices to ten and fifteen cents and established agencies around the country to sell them. In a promotional effort, he published the letters of satisfied pattern customers in The Queen of Fashion.⁶⁸ By concentrating on both the pattern and the magazine business, Ottley brought the publication and the company back to financial health. Circulation picked up, hitting 75,000 by 1894.⁶⁹ The magazine contained several pages of small ads, placed at the back of the book, for items such as powder, soaps, and the ubiquitous patent medicines. McCall Co. offered premiums to subscribers and pictures of these gifts appeared in the back pages.⁷⁰

With the September 1897 issue the publication took the name of its founder, becoming McCall's Magazine—The Queen of Fashion. The editor explained that this name change reflected the greater range of articles in the magazine, now no longer simply a fashion journal:

McCall's Magazine will contain nothing but the latest and most tasteful of Dame Fashion's creations, besides articles on current topics, beautifully illustrated by photographs; household hints that are really useful and practical; bright and entertaining fiction, and literature of interest to all members of the family.⁷¹

With its expanded material, recovered financial health, and renewed appeal to readers (and hence advertisers), this one-time pattern catalog was on its way to becoming an enduring general interest women's magazine. In 1913 the banking firm of White, Weld & Co. bought the title and formed the McCall Corp. They continued the effective management practices begun by Ottley, and invested in the corporation, ensuring its growth and success.

PICTORIAL REVIEW

Pictorial Review, a publication with origins similar to those of McCall's and Delineator, entered the magazine world some twenty years after these prototypes, in 1899. This magazine sprang up from the dress pattern business of German immigrant William Paul Ahnelt.⁷² Ahnelt's firm, the American Fashion Company, published a number of fashion catalogs. Pictorial Review was the only one that would go on to great success as a mass circulation women's journal. Pictures of the American Fashion Co.'s patterns ran throughout Pictorial Review and were tendered as premiums to those sending in five or more subscriptions. As later Pictorial Review editor Arthur Vance noted, “At its birth it was rather a thin, little infant, more or less homely in appearance, but still having within it the elements of a wonderful promise.”⁷³ By entering the industry slightly later than its competitors, Pictorial Review benefitted from the experience of the other magazines. From the first it contained more than merely fashions. By its second year the journal included serials, reviews of plays and books, as well as articles on fashion, health, beauty, home decoration, and entertainment. A different cover appeared every month and could be framed as a picture.⁷⁴

Initially, Pictorial Review—A Monthly Review of Trade Offerings in Fashions, Fads and Follies cost ten cents an issue, ＄1.00 for a year's subscription.⁷⁵ By the third issue the publisher tried to distance himself from the narrow image of a pattern journal, despite the pervasive pictures of American Fashion Co.'s styles. A new subtitle read more inclusively “An Illustrated Monthly Devoted to Fashion, Society, the Stage, the Arts, and The Home.” William McDowell's name appeared on the cover for one issue but the magazine then lapsed into the editorial anonymity customary at the time.⁷⁶ A typical issue ran about thirty-five pages.⁷⁷ By the end of 1901 the publication announced an increase in pages due to the “unprecendented success and enthusiasm that Pictorial Review has met with in Advertising, Home and Fashion circles.”⁷⁸ Generally, Pictorial Review aimed at women of a higher social and economic bracket than the other Big Six.⁷⁹ Slicker than the other women's journals, Pictorial Review took a more sophisticated tone in its articles. In the early years the activities of social figures such as Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont and Mrs. Hermann Oelrichs received attention, as well as such events as the New York Horse Show. A regular column on the Professional Women's League of New York appeared. A series focusing on “Women of All Nations” began in 1900. Ads featured clothing more than any other product.⁸⁰ When Arthur Vance took over as editor in 1908 the magazine moved quickly out of its infancy stage and took shape as a general women's publication for upper middle-class readers.⁸¹

OTHER ENTRANTS

Numerous other fashion magazines existed at this time. Some emerged from pattern companies, such as Demorest's Monthly. This began as the quarterly Mme. Demorest's Mirror of Fashions in 1860, seven years before Ebenezer Butterick brought out his first pattern catalog. Created to tout the patterns and beauty products of Mme. Demorest and expanded to include advice columns, temperance essays, music, and other material, the publication flourished, particularly under the direction of the talented Jane Cunningham Croly (“Jennie June”). However, Mme. Ellen Demorest and her husband turned the journal over to their sons in the mid-1880s so they could concentrate on temperance reform. They sold the pattern business as well. The Demorest sons proved unable to guide the periodical through the rapid changes occurring in the magazine world, and by the turn of the century Demorest's, like Godey's and Peterson's, had folded.⁸² Frank Leslie published a family of women's journals, including some fashion magazines, from the mid-fifties until the early 1880s, when he died. His wife Miriam Squier Leslie who took over the business concentrated on the company's general publications.⁸³

Harper's Bazar (founded in 1867 and not to acquire its added “a” until 1929) and Vogue (founded 1892) focused on fashion, high society, and culture. Harper's Bazar was one of a stable of publications put out by the brothers running the Harper publishing concern. Harper's Bazar concentrated primarily on fashion, although in its early years also included articles on family and home topics. However, it gradually de-emphasized these, instead stressing fashion, style, and culture for the upper and upper-middle class, a mission it continued after being purchased by the Hearst Corp. in 1913. Vogue reported on the activities of New York City's high society from its start, as well as commenting on fashion and cultural matters. In the skillful hands of publisher Conde Nast, who took over in 1909, the publication more aggressively took on the role of fashion arbiter under the firm direction of editor Edna Woolman Chase. Once settling on their editorial strategy, both Harper's Bazar and Vogue achieved notable success in the specialized realm of high fashion. Such journals formed a special subset of the women's magazine market. They never moved, as pattern publications Delineator, McCall's, and Pictorial Review did, to extend their editorial coverage to gain larger audiences. Instead, they aimed at an elite segment of American women, working to “rigorously exclude all others,” as Vogue publisher Conde Nast put it.⁸⁴ From a business perspective such a targeted strategy could be rewarding, but the influence of such journals on the lives of American women came nowhere near that of the mass circulators, except in the fashion arena.

Mail order magazines, marketing a large assortment of goods to readers through the postal system, gained huge circulations, especially in rural areas. The first mail-order magazines came out of Augusta, Maine, in the 1870s, published by E. C. Allen. They competed primarily on low price, typically stated as fifty cents a year; often, however, the publisher cared little about collecting payment. Readers were needed not for their money, but for their names, to swell the circulation list sold to potential advertisers. Many mass-market magazines underwrote their costs with advertising revenues, but the mail-order journals had little reason other than advertising for their existence. The expansion of content undertaken by the major women's journals moved them away from these purely mail-order publications. When the Post Office insisted in 1907 on seeing a list of paid subscribers for magazines wishing the second-class rate, many mail-order journals died; readers refused to pay much for these sheets. Two that managed to stay alive were Women's World (1901-40) and Comfort (1888-1940). Comfort survived by reducing its rate to fifteen cents a year and Woman's World did so by pricing itself at twenty-five cents annually. Both competed to some degree with the major women's magazines for readers.⁸⁵

Other specialized journals targeting women appeared; none achieved circulations to rival the large general interest women's publications. A number of women's rights magazines materialized. While these journals served to publicize the cause of female suffrage and helped foster community among its adherents, most had little money and were run by women's rights supporters with minimal journalism experience. Women's rights activists Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton founded the Revolution in 1868, with the backing of millionaire George Train. The editors called for female suffrage, equal pay for equal work, and an eight-hour day—radical ideas for the time. In 1879 competition emerged in the form of the Woman's Journal, a more conservative publication created by Lucy Stone, her husband Henry Blackwell, and the American Woman Suffrage Association. Experiencing severe financial difficulties once Train separated from the magazine, the Revolution disappeared by the early seventies. The Woman's Journal enjoyed greater support from both readers and financial backers and it continued into the twentieth century. In 1917 the National American Woman Suffrage Association purchased the title with money bequeathed by Miriam Squier Leslie and renamed it the Woman Citizen.⁸⁶

At least five magazines targeting African-American women appeared, offering opportunities to black female journalists (who also wrote for women's journals targeted to white females) as well as information and entertainment created specifically for this audience. The A. M. E church sponsored Our Women and Children. Founded in 1888 in Louisville, Kentucky, it carried articles on education, the home, and social issues such as female suffrage and temperance. Two other family-oriented magazines for black women appeared in 1900 and 1907. Boston offered The Woman's Era, an outgrowth of the city's Women's Era Club, with women's rights activist and club president Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin at its helm. A minister's wife, Julia Ringwood Coston, started a fashion journal for African-American women in the 1890s. Ringwood's Afro-American Journal of Fashion was so enticing that it attracted both black and white readers. Unfortunately advertisers failed to follow suit.⁸⁷

Ethnic language publications, whether newspapers, newspaper columns, or magazines, continued to emerge.⁸⁸ Churches also sponsored journals for females. The appearance of all these specialized publications testified to the existence of important segments of female readers, defined differently than simply as women, homemakers, and consumers. However, unless subsidized by churches, clubs, or individual donors, most ultimately failed due to poor distribution and inadequate support from readers or advertisers. Increasingly, in this time of the new mass circulation magazine industry, ability to attract advertisers proved crucial to success.

Many historians cite 1893 as a watershed year for the magazine industry, the beginning of a time of low-price, high-volume publications underwritten by advertising revenues. During that year of financial panic, S. S. McClure started McClure's, priced at fifteen cents, John Brisben Walker of Cosmopolitan cut his price to twelve and one-half cents, and Frank Munsey responded by dropping Munsey's to ten cents. These price decreases caused corresponding increases in circulation; for example, Munsey's went from 40,000 to 200,000 in a year, reaching 500,000 by 1895.⁸⁹

Yet in focusing on these 1893 events, historians have shortchanged women's publications. Women's journals prefigured this magazine revolution, in price and in use of advertising. Their success was reflected in their circulations, large even before the nineties. In 1891 Ladies' Home Journal boasted a circulation of 600,000, Delineator one of 393,000, and Woman's Home Companion one over 125,000. Munsey's, a title cited as evidence of the “magazine revolution,” only boasted 35,000 readers in 1891; McClure's did not yet exist. Even Harper's, one of the most successful of the older, established journals, only had a circulation of 175,000 in 1891. Clearly, women's magazines had grown large earlier than other mass market journals.⁹⁰

Notes

1. “Ladies' Home Journal,” Journalist, p. 10. Portions of this chapter appeared in Waller (Zuckerman), “Business Side of Media Development.”

2. Towne, Adventures, p. 190. On ante-bellum women's magazines see Tebbel and Zuckerman, Magazine in America, pp. 27-38.

3. Bok, Maine; Wood, Story of Advertising; Fuller, Cyrus H. K. Curtis; and “Man Who Founded the Journal,” pp. 11, 12, 103.

4. Knapp had worked prior to her marriage as a private secretary to Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe; see Bok, Maine, p. 74; “The Journalist's Birthday,” and “Women as Editors,” Journalist, pp. 1, 2.

5. Bok, Maine, p. 94; and Mott, History, IV: 537.

6. Wood, Magazines, p. 211.

7. Bok, Maine, p. 107.

8. Hower, History.

9. Bok, Maine, p. 107.

10. Mott, History, IV: 530.

11. Weibel, Mirror, Mirror, p. 147.

12. Quoted in Steinberg, Reformer, p. 19.

13. Mott, History, IV: 537, 538.

14. Ibid., 539; “Ladies' Home Journal,” Journalist, p. 10; and LHJ Scrapbook, p. 23, CCP, File Drawer 1.

15. “Women as Editors,” pp. 1, 2.

16. Quoted in Short History of the LHJ, p. 16, CCP, File Drawer 4.

17. “Women as Editors,” p. 1.

18. Quoted in ibid., p. 2.

19. Presbrey, History, p. 481.

20. N. W. Ayer & Son, American Newspaper Annual, 1890.

21. Mott, History, IV: 764.

22. Mast, Crowell & Kirkpatrick booklet of 1898, quoted in Printer's Ink notice (November 16, 1898), p. 43.

23. Mott, History, IV: 764.

24. Young, Crowell-Collier.

25. Peterson, Magazines, p. 133.

26. Kerr, “First 75 Years,” p. 37.

27. Young, Crowell-Collier.

28. Mott, History, IV: 766.

29. Waller-Zuckerman, “Women's Journals,” pp. 99-108.

30. WHC (January 1897): 15.

31. Quoted in Crowell, Crowell Company, p. 3.

32. WHC for 1897; and Kerr, “First 75 Years,” p. 38.

33. GBL to Ella Lane, March 30, 1904, GBLVLP.

34. Stote, “Crowell,” p. 9.

35. Mott, History, V: 126.

36. Ibid., 129.

37. Fisher, “Housekeeping Emerges,” p. 81.

38. Ibid.

39. Mott, History, V: 130; and WHA to MVR, February 16, 1907, MVRP.

40. Mott, History, V: 131; and Fisher, “Housekeeping Emerges.”

41. Presbrey, History, p. 485; and Mott, History, V: 131.

42. Winkler, Hearst, p. 173.

43. Daggett, “Delineator,” p. 365.

44. Woodward, Lady Persuaders, p. 43; Kidwell, Cutting, p. 83; and Daggett, “Delineator,” p. 366.

45. Mott, History, III: 481.

46. “Origins and Progress,” pp. 59-61.

47. Daggett, “Delineator,” pp. 365, 366.

48. Weiland, ed., Needlework Nostalgia; Mott, History, III: 482; and issues of Delineator for 1875.

49. Delineator, yearlong issues for 1875, 1884, 1891.

50. Daggett, “Delineator,” p. 419.

51. Mott, History, III: 483.

52. Daggett, “Delineator,” p. 419.

53. Mott, History, III: 482.

54. See e.g., Delineator of July, 1891; and Mott, History, III: 483.

55. N. W. Ayer & Son, American Newspaper Annual, 1894.

56. J. Walter Thompson Co., Advertising, 1899-1900, p. 76, JWTP.

57. Lord and Thomas, America's Magazines; and Story of a Pantry Shelf.

58. Bryk, ed., American Dress; J. Walter Thompson, Advertising, 1899-1900, JWTP; and issues of Delineator, 1875, 1884, 1885, 1891, 1898.

59. See e.g., Delineator (February 1884); and Delineator, yearlong issues for 1875.

60. See Delineator, yearlong issues for 1875, 1884, 1891.

61. Thayer, Astir; and Waller-Zuckerman, “Women's Journals,” p. 104.

62. Ridgway, “Magazine Makers,” p. 56.

63. Mott, History, IV: 580; and Tebbel, American Magazine, p. 161.

64. Mott, History, IV: 580.

65. Ibid., 581.

66. Queen of Fashion, yearlong issues for 1894.

67. Queen of Fashion, 1894; and Mott, History, IV: 58.

68. Queen of Fashion, yearlong issues for 1894.

69. N. W. Ayer & Son, American Newspaper Annual, 1894.

70. Queen of Fashion, yearlong issues for 1894.

71. McCall's (September 1897): 8.

72. Hinds, Magazine Magic, pp. 54, 55.

73. PR (November 1924): 1; and “Premiums! Premiums!” p. 25.

74. PR (August 1900): 2.

75. PR (September 15, 1899).

76. PR (December 1899).

77. PR (September 1899-February 1900).

78. PR (September 1901): 30.

79. Stevens, “Contents.”

80. See e.g., “Boudoir Gossip,” p. 16. Advertisers included Koted Silk Underwear Co., PR (December 1900): n.p.; various and tailors, PR (February 1900): 16; and the “Bon Ton” Corset, PR (May 1899): p. 33.

81. Austin, “Woman Looks,” pp. 64, 66, 69.

82. Ross, Crusaders; and Kidwell, Cutting, pp. 81-83.

83. Mott, History, II: 437-41, 462.

84. Nast quoted in Seebohm, Vogue, p. 80.

85. Mott, History, IV: 20, 365-67; and Kennedy, “Postal Rates,” pp. 93-112.

86. Steiner, “Finding Community,” pp. 1-15; Masel-Walters, “Burning Cloud,” pp. 103-10; Masel-Walters, “Hustle,” pp. 167-83; and Masel-Walters, “Revolution,” pp. 242-51.

87. Bullock, Afro-American, pp. 167-71, 209; Snorgrass, “Black Women,” pp. 150-58; Journalist (January 26, 1889): 2-20; Dunningan, “Negro Women in Journalism,” pp. 178-79, 193, 197; and Coleman, “Woman's Era,” pp. 36, 37.

88. E.g., “American Jewess,” pp. 57-63.

89. Peterson, Magazines, pp. 13, 14; and Wood, Magazines, p. 60.

90. Ayer's Directory, 1891; Peterson, Magazines, p. 60; and Ohmann, “Mass Culture,” p. 90.

Bibliography

Manuscript Collections Used

William Alexander Letterbooks (WAL)

Bruce Barton (BBP)

Bureau of Vocational Information Records (BVIR)

Butterick Archives (BA)

Hayden Carruth (HCP)

Vera Connolly (VCP)

Crowell-Collier Publishing Co. (CCP)

Curtis Co. (CP)

Dorothy Dignam Papers (DDP)

Theodore Dreiser Papers (Lilly Library)

Theodore Dreiser Papers (University of Pennsylvania)

Christine Frederick (CMFP)

Bruce and Beatrice Gould (BG&BBGP)

Margaret Hickey Papers (MHP)

Herbert H. Hoover Papers (HHHP)

Gertrude Battles Lane (LC) (GBL Corr.)

Gertrude Battles Lane (Virginia Lane) (GBLVL)

Clara Savage Littledale (CSLP)

Marie Mattingly Meloney (MMM)

J. Walter Thompson Company (JWTC)

Martha Van Rensselaer (MVRP)

Issues of the Magazines Themselves

Abbreviations-Magazines

Advertising Age (AA)

Better Homes & Gardens (BH&G)

Business Week (BW)

Christian Science Monitor (CSM)

Family Circle (FC)

Good Housekeeping (GH)

Journalism History (JH)

Ladies' Home Journal (LHJ)

New York Times (NYT)

Pictorial Review (PR)

Printers Ink (PI)

Wall Street Journal (WSJ)

Woman's Home Companion (WHC)

Abbreviations-Individuals

William Alexander (WA)

Bruce Barton (BB)

Edward Bok (EB)

Hayden Carruth (HC)

Frederick Collins (FC)

Dorothy Dignam (DD)

Theodore Dreiser (TD)

Sally Easton (SE)

Gertrude Battles Lane (GBL)

Virginia N. Lane (VNL)

Clara Savage Littledale (CSL)

Marie Mattingly Meloney (MMM)

Loring Schuler (LS)

James Eaton Tower (JET)

Gerald W. Young (GWY)

Books

Ayer, N. W. & Son. American Newspaper Annual. Philadelphia: N. W. Ayer & Son, 1891-1960.

Bok, Edward. A Man from Maine. New York: Charles Scribner's and Sons, 1923.

Bullock, Penelope. The Afro-American Periodical Press, 1839-1909. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981.

Crowell Co. About the Crowell Co. Springfield, OH: Crowell Co., 1903.

Fuller, Walter Dean. The Life and Times of Cyrus H. K. Curtis, 1850-1933. New York: Newcomen Society Address, 1948.

Hinds, Marjorie M. and David L. Magazine Magic. Laceyville, PA: The Messenger Book Press, 1972.

Kidwell, Claudia Brush. Cutting a Fashionable Fit. Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1979.

Mott, Frank Luther. A History of American Magazines, 1741-1850, I; 1850-1865, II; 1865-1885, III; 1885-1905, IV; 1905-1930, V. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1938, 1957, 1968.

Peterson, Theodore. Magazines in the Twentieth Century. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1964.

Presbrey, Frank. The History and Development of Advertising. New York: Doubleday, and Doran Co., Inc., 1929.

Ross, Ishbel. Crusades and Crinolines. New York: Harper & Row, 1963.

Seebohm, Caroline. The Man Who Was Vogue. New York: Viking Press, 1982.

Steinberg, Salme. Reformer in the Marketplace. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979.

Tebbel, John. The American Magazine. New York: Hawthorn, 1969.

——— and Mary Ellen Zuckerman. The Magazine in America, 1741-1990. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Thayer, John Adams. Astir. Boston: Small, Maynard and Co., 1910.

Thompson, J. Walter. Advertising, 1895.

Towne, Charles Hanson. Adventures in Editing. New York: D. Appleton, 1926.

Weibel, Kathryn. Mirror, Mirror. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press, 1977.

Weiland, Barbara, ed. Needlework Nostalgia. New York: Butterick Publishing Co., 1975.

Wood, James Playsted. The Curtis Magazines. New York: Ronald Press, 1949.

———. Magazines in the United States. New York: Ronald Press, 1949.

———. The Story of Advertising. New York: Ronald Press, 1958.

Woodward, Helen. The Lady Persuaders. New York: I. Obolensky, 1960.

Young, Gerald. This is Crowell-Collier. New York: Crowell-Collier Co., 1947.

Articles

Austin, Mary. “Woman Looks at Her World.” PR (November 1924): 64, 66, 69.

“Boudoir Gossip.” PR (February 1900): 16.

Coleman, Willie M. “The Woman's Era, 1884-1897.” Sage 1, no. 2 (Fall 1984): 36, 37.

Daggett, Mabel Potter. “When the Delineator Was Young.” Delineator (November 1910): 365, 419.

Dunnigan, Alice E. “Early History of Negro Women in Journalism.” The Negro History Bulletin (Summer 1965): 178-79, 193, 197.

Fisher, Katherine. “Housekeeping Emerges from the Eighties.” GH (May 1935): 80-83, ff.

“The Journalist's Birthday.” The Journalist 23 (April 1889): 1, 2.

Kerr, Sophie. “The First 75 Years.” WHC (November 1948): 36-38, 118-24.

“The Ladies' Home Journal.” The Journalist (October 22, 1887): 10.

“The Man Who Founded the Journal.” LHJ (June 1950): 11, 12, 103.

Masel-Walters, Lynn. “A Burning Cloud by Day.” JH 3, no. 4 (1976-77): 103-10.

———. “Their Rights and Nothing More.” Journalism Quarterly 53 (Summer 1976): 242-51.

———. “To Hustle with the Rowdies.” Journal of American Culture (Spring 1980): 167-83.

Ohmann, Richard. “Where Did Mass Culture Come From? The Case of Magazines.” Berkshire Review, no. 16 (1981): 87-99.

“Origins and Progress of the Publishing House of E. Butterick & Co.” The Metropolitan (July 1871): 59-61.

“Premiums! Premiums!” PR (March 1900): 25.

Ridgway, Erman. “Magazine Makers.” Everybody's Magazine (January 1912): 56.

Snorgrass, J. William. “Black Women and Journalism, 1800-1950.” Western Journal of Black Studies 6, no. 3 (1982): 150-58.

Steiner, Linda. “Finding Community in Nineteenth Century Suffrage Periodicals.” American Journalism 1, no. 1 (Summer 1983): 1-15.

Stevens, Hazel. “An Inquiry into the Present Contents of Women's Magazines as an Index to Women's Interests.” Master's Essay, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, 1925.

Waller (Zuckerman), Mary Ellen. “The Business Side of Media Development: Women's Magazines in the Gilded Age.” In Edwin J. Perkins, ed., Essays in Economic and Business History, no. 8 (1989).

Waller-Zuckerman, Mary Ellen. “Marketing the Women's Journals, 1873-1900.” Business and Economic History, 2nd Series, vol. 18 (1989): 99-108.

“Women as Editors.” The Journalist 23 (April 1889): 1, 2.