Ladies' Home Journal

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Ladies' Home Journal was an American magazine that ran until 2016 and was last published by the Meredith Corporation. It was first published on February 16, 1883,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and eventually became one of the leading women's magazines of the 20th century in the United States. In 1891, it was published in Philadelphia by the Curtis Publishing Company. In 1903, it was the first American magazine to reach one million subscribers.<ref name="santana">Template:Cite news</ref>

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 "transitioning Ladies' Home Journal to a special interest publication".<ref>Template:Cite press release</ref> It became available quarterly on newsstands only, though its website remained in operation.<ref name=NYT>Template:Cite news</ref> The last issue was published in 2016.

Ladies' Home Journal was one of the Seven Sisters. The name was derived from the Greek myth of the "seven sisters", also known as the Pleiades.

Early historyEdit

File:Ladies' Home Journal Vol.8 No.06 (May, 1891).pdf

1891 edition of Ladies' Home Journal

The Ladies' Home Journal was developed from a double-page supplement in the American newspaper Tribune and Farmer titled Women at Home. Women at Home was written by Louisa Knapp Curtis, wife of the paper's publisher, Cyrus H. K. Curtis.<ref name="autogenerated1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>Template:When 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.Template:Cn

Edward William BokEdit

Template:Main article Knapp was succeeded by Edward William Bok as LHJ 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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 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.<ref name="santana" /> Bok served until 1919. The features he introduced was the "Ruth Ashmore advice column", written by Isabel Mallon.<ref name="ruth1">Template:Cite news</ref> In the 20th century, the magazine published the work of muckrakers and social reformers such as Jane Addams. In 1901, it published two articles about the early architectural designs of Frank Lloyd Wright.<ref>Template:Cite journal Template:Full citation needed</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal Template:Full citation needed</ref> The December 1909 issue included a comic strip which was the first appearance of Kewpie, created by Rose O'Neill.<ref name="mhs">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Bok introduced business practices of low subscription rates and inclusion of advertising to offset costs. Some argue that women's magazines, like the Ladies' Home Journal, pioneered the strategies "magazine revolution".<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Edward Bok authored more than twenty articles opposed to women's suffrage which threatened his "vision of the woman at home, living the simple life".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He opposed the concept of women working outside the home, women's clubs, and education for women. He wrote that feminism would lead women to divorce, ill health, and even death. Bok solicited articles against women's rights from former presidents Grover Cleveland and Theodore Roosevelt (though Roosevelt would later become a supporter of women's suffrage). Bok viewed suffragists as traitors to their sex, saying that "there is no greater enemy of woman than woman herself."<ref name="Marshall1997">Template:Cite book</ref>

Later historyEdit

File:The Ladies' home journal (1948) (14768384972).jpg

A refrigerator advertisement, 1948

During World War II, the Ladies' Home Journal was a venue for the government to place articles intended for homemakers.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 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 the Saturday Evening Post, which was also published by the Curtis family. The Ladies' 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.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Seven SistersEdit

The Journal, along with its major rivals, Better Homes and Gardens, Family Circle, Good Housekeeping, McCall's, Redbook and Woman's Day, were known as the Seven Sisters, after the women's colleges in the Northeast.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> For decades, the Journal had the most circulation of the Seven Sisters, but it fell behind McCall's in 1961.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> In 1968, its circulation was 6.8 million, compared to McCall's 8.5 million. That year, Curtis Publishing sold the Ladies' Home Journal and the magazine The American Home to Downe Communications for $5.4 million in stock.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Between 1969 and 1974, Downe was acquired by Charter Company.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> In 1982, it sold the magazine to Family Media Inc., publishers of Health magazine.

ProtestEdit

In March 1970, feminists including Susan Brownmiller held an 11-hour sit-in at the Ladies' Home JournalTemplate:'s office, with some of them sitting on the desk of editor John Mack Carter and asking him to resign and be replaced by a woman editor.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="gsmNYT11">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Carter declined to resign; he was allowed to produce a section of the magazine that August. Other activists continued the protests.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Redesign and circulationsEdit

In 1986, the Meredith Corporation acquired the magazine from Family Media for $96 million.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 1998, the Journal's circulation had dropped to 4.5 million.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

The magazine made the decision to end monthly publication and relaunch it quarterly.<ref name="emb">Template:Cite news</ref> At the same time, the headquarters of the magazine moved from New York City<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> to Des Moines, Iowa.<ref name="emb" /> Meredith offered its subscribers the chance to transfer their subscriptions to Meredith's sister publications.<ref name="NYT" /> The magazine had a readership of 3.2 million in 2016. Also in 2016, Meredith partnered with Grand Editorial to produce Ladies' Home Journal. Only one issue was created.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

FeaturesEdit

File:Ladies' Home Journal and Practical Housekeeper Vol.6 No.02 (January, 1889).pdf

Ladies' Home Journal issue from January 1889

The American cooking teacher Sarah Tyson Rorer served as LHJ's first food editor from 1897 to 1911,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> 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 until 1963.<ref>NY Times Obituary September 8, 1991Template:Full citation needed</ref>

In 1946, the Journal adopted the slogan "Never underestimate the power of a woman", which it continues to use today.<ref>Template:Cite journal Template:Page needed</ref>

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,<ref>Traditionally, the wife's side of the story is told first, followed by the husband's side.</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> 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.<ref name="Popenoe (1960)">Template:Cite book Template:Page needed</ref> 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 watercolor.<ref name="Taylor">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

EditorsEdit

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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)<ref name="worley2000">Template:Cite news Part 1 of the article appears at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/22386499/genetic_genius_part_1/ .</ref>
Diane Salvatore (2002–2008)
Sally Lee (2008–2014)