 January 1951 cover | |
| Editor-in-chief | Sally Lee |
|---|---|
| Categories | Women's interest, lifestyle |
| Frequency | 11 issues/year (1883–1910; 1911–2014) 24 issues a year (c. 1910–1911) Quarterly (2014–2016) |
| Publisher | Meredith Corporation |
| Total circulation (2011) | 3,267,239[1] |
| Founded | 1883 (1883) |
| Final issue | 2016 |
| Country | US |
| Based in | Des Moines, Iowa |
| Language | English |
| ISSN | 0023-7124 |
Ladies' Home Journal was an Americanmagazine that ran until 2016 and was last published by theMeredith Corporation. It was first published on February 16, 1883,[2] and eventually became one of the leadingwomen's magazines of the 20th century in the United States. In 1891, it was published in Philadelphia by theCurtis Publishing Company. In 1903, it was the first American magazine to reach one million subscribers.[3]
In the late 20th century, the rise of television caused sales of the magazine to decline 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 "transitioningLadies' Home Journal to a special interest publication".[4] It became available quarterly on newsstands only, though its website remained in operation.[5] The last issue was published in 2016.
Ladies' Home Journal was one of theSeven Sisters. The name was derived from the Greek myth of the "seven sisters", also known as thePleiades.
TheLadies' Home Journal was developed from a double-page supplement in the American newspaperTribune and Farmer titledWomen at Home.Women at Home was written byLouisa Knapp Curtis, wife of the paper's publisher,Cyrus H. K. Curtis.[6][when?] After a year, it became an independent publication, with Knapp as editor for the first six years. Its original name wasThe Ladies' Home Journal and Practical Housekeeper, but Knapp dropped the last three words in 1886.[citation needed]
Knapp was succeeded by Edward William Bok asLHJ editor in late 1889. Knapp remained involved with the magazine's management, and she also wrote a column for each issue. In 1892,LHJ became the first magazine to refuse patent medicine advertisements.[7] In 1896, Bok became Louisa Knapp's son-in-law when he married her daughter,Mary Louise Curtis.LHJ reached a subscribed circulation of more than one million copies by 1903, the first American magazine to do so.[3] Bok served until 1919. The features he introduced was the "Ruth Ashmore advice column", written byIsabel Mallon.[8] In the 20th century, the magazine published the work ofmuckrakers and social reformers such asJane Addams. In 1901, it published two articles about the early architectural designs ofFrank Lloyd Wright.[9][10] The December 1909 issue included a comic strip which was the first appearance ofKewpie, created byRose O'Neill.[11]
Bok introduced business practices of low subscription rates and inclusion of advertising to offset costs. Some argue that women's magazines, like theLadies' Home Journal, pioneered the strategies "magazine revolution".[12]
Edward Bok authored more than twenty articles opposed towomen's suffrage which threatened his "vision of the woman at home, living the simple life".[13] He opposed the concept of women working outside the home,women's clubs, and education for women. He wrote thatfeminism would lead women to divorce, ill health, and even death. Bok solicited articles against women's rights from former presidentsGrover Cleveland and Theodore Roosevelt (though Roosevelt would later become a supporter of women's suffrage). Bok viewedsuffragists as traitors to their sex, saying that "there is no greater enemy of woman than woman herself."[14]
_(14768384972).jpg)
DuringWorld War II, theLadies' Home Journal was a venue for the government to place articles intended for homemakers.[15] The annual subscription price paid for the production of the magazine and its mailing. The profits came from heavy advertising, pitched to families with above-average incomes of $1,000 to $3,000 in 1900. In the 1910s, it carried about a third of the advertising in all women's magazines. By 1929, it had nearly twice as much advertising as any other publication except for theSaturday Evening Post, which was also published by the Curtis family. TheLadies' Home Journal was sold to 2 million subscribers in the mid-1920s, grew a little during the depression years, and surged again during post-World War II. In 1955, each issue sold 4.6 million copies, and there were approximately 11 million readers.[16]
TheJournal, along with its major rivals,Better Homes and Gardens,Family Circle,Good Housekeeping,McCall's,Redbook andWoman's Day, were known as the Seven Sisters, after thewomen's colleges in the Northeast.[17] For decades, theJournal had the most circulation of the Seven Sisters, but it fell behindMcCall's in 1961.[18] In 1968, its circulation was 6.8 million, compared toMcCall's 8.5 million. That year, Curtis Publishing sold theLadies' Home Journal and the magazineThe American Home to Downe Communications for $5.4 million in stock.[19][20] Between 1969 and 1974, Downe was acquired byCharter Company.[21] In 1982, it sold the magazine to Family Media Inc., publishers ofHealth magazine.
In March 1970, feminists includingSusan Brownmiller held an 11-hour sit-in at theLadies' Home Journal's office, with some of them sitting on the desk of editorJohn Mack Carter and asking him to resign and be replaced by a woman editor.[22][23] Carter declined to resign; he was allowed to produce a section of the magazine that August. Other activists continued the protests.[24]
In 1986, theMeredith Corporation acquired the magazine from Family Media for $96 million.[25][26] In 1998, theJournal's circulation had dropped to 4.5 million.[27] The magazine debuted an extensive visual and editorial redesign in its March 2012 issue. PhotographerBrigitte Lacombe was hired to shoot cover photos, withKate Winslet appearing on the first revamped issue. TheJournal announced that portions of its editorial content would becrowdsourced from readers, who would be fairly compensated for their work.[28]
The magazine made the decision to end monthly publication and relaunch it quarterly.[29] At the same time, the headquarters of the magazine moved from New York City[30] toDes Moines, Iowa.[29] Meredith offered its subscribers the chance to transfer their subscriptions to Meredith's sister publications.[5] The magazine had a readership of 3.2 million in 2016. Also in 2016, Meredith partnered with Grand Editorial to produceLadies' Home Journal. Only one issue was created.[31][32]
The American cooking teacherSarah Tyson Rorer served asLHJ's first food editor from 1897 to 1911,[33] when she moved toGood Housekeeping. In 1936,Mary Cookman, wife ofNew York Post editorJoseph Cookman, began working at theLadies' Home Journal. In time, she was named its Executive Editor, and she remained withLHJ until 1963.[34]
In 1946, theJournal adopted the slogan "Never underestimate the power of a woman", which it continues to use today.[35]
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, amarriage counselor explains the solutions offered in counseling,[36] 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.[37] MacKaye co-founded this column withPaul 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.[38] MacKaye died in 1992 at the age of 88. Subsequent writers for the feature have includedLois Duncan and Margery D. Rosen.
The illustrations ofWilliam Ladd Taylor were featured between 1895 and 1926; the magazine also sold reproductions of his works in oil and watercolor.[39]
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)...Mr. Carter edited McCall's from 1961 to 1965, Ladies' Home Journal from 1965 to 1974 and Good Housekeeping from 1975 to 1994. ... only person to edit all three....
Media related toLadies' Home Journal at Wikimedia Commons