March 1886 Ladies Home Journal and Practical Housekeeper, volume III, founded and edited by Louisa Knapp Curtis

The Ladies' Home Journal is a magazine which first appeared on February 16, 1883. It had been a single-page supplement written by Louisa Knapp that was included in Tribune and Farmer, a magazine published by by her husband, Cyrus H. K. Curtis. She became its founding editor and continued in that role for six years while the magazine rose to national popularity. The journal later was published by the Curtis Publishing Company, which was founded in 1890. It continues to be published, since 1986, by the Meredith Corporation.

History

Ladies' Home Journal arose from the popular Women at Home column written by Louisa Knapp, which gained so much popularity that it was distributed as a supplement in another magazine published in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Tribune and Farmer.^[1] The following year it became an independent publication with her as its editor. Its original name was The Ladies Home Journal and Practical Housekeeper, but she dropped the last three words from its title in 1886. It rapidly became the leading magazine of its type, reaching a circulation of more than one million copies in ten years.^[1]

It was edited by Louisa Knapp until she was succeeded by Edward William Bok in 1889. She continued to author a column in each issue, however, and remained involved with its management. In 1892, it became the first magazine to refuse patent medicine advertisments.^[2] At the turn of the twentieth century, the magazine published the work of muckrakers and social reformers such as Jane Addams. In 1896 Bok became her son-in-law when he married her daughter, Mary Louise Curtis.

One of the magazine's most popular and enduring features is, Can This Marriage Be Saved?, a column in which each person of a couple in a troubled marriage explains their view of the problem, a marriage counselor explains the solutions offered in counseling, and the outcome is published.^[3]

For decades, the Journal was the leading women's magazine, but it's circulation first fell behind McCall's in 1961.^[4] In 1968, Curtis Publishing sold the journal, along with the magazine American Home, to Downe Communications for $5.4 million in stock. ^[5] Some time between 1969 and 1974 the journal was acquired by Charter Company. ^[6] In 1986, the Meredith Corporation acquired The Ladies' Home Journal from Family Media Inc., for $96 milliion.^[7][8]

Trivia

In the late 1950s, Mad Magazine satirized the periodical, in what is likely their most vitriolic satire ever: "Ladies' Home Journey, the Magazine Women Wallow In." Several "articles" in this satire shared the theme that a woman marries a man only to wear him down until he dies so she can play the vulture and get his money--even as stated in Mad's introduction to the article.

Writers list

• Helen Reimensnyder Martin
• Cynthia May Alden
• Olivia Mackenzie Zecy
• Joan Younger Dickinson

Cover gallery

A cover of Ladies' Home Journal from 1906

March 1922. Illustrated by N. C. Wyeth

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b} Curtis Publishing Company (Saturday Evening Post & Ladies Home Journal)
2. ^ 30. Cleaning Up the Patent-Medicine and Other Evils. Bok, Edward William. 1921. The Americanization of Edward Bok
3. ^ Give Them Enough Rope..."Can This Marriage Be Saved"
4. ^ Anonymous. Revolt at Curtis. Time magazine.Friday, Oct. 16, 1964.
5. ^ Bedingfield, R. E. Curtis Publishing Sells 2 Magazines; Downe Paying $5.4-Million in Stock, The New York Times, August 15, 1968, Business and Finance section, p. 54.
6. ^ Anonymous. Magna charter'. Time, Monday, Jun. 16, 1980. [1].
7. ^ History of Meredith Corporation
8. ^ Anoymous. Meredith Won't Tinker With Added Magazines. New York Times, November 25, 1985, Late City Final Edition, Section D, Page 2, Column 5.

External links

• Official site

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