A History of Popular Women's Magazines in the United States, 1792-1995

by Mary Ellen Zuckerman

Overview

Throughout their history, women's mass circulation jourbanals have played a major role in the lives of millions of American women. Yet the women's magazines of the early 20th century were quite different from those perused by women today. This book looks at changes that occurred in these jourbanals and offers insight into these changes. Business forces formed a key shaping mechanism, tempered by individual editors, readers, advertisers, technology, and cultural and social forces.

Founded in the second half of the 19th century, six titles became the largest circulators—Ladies Home Jourbanal, Good Housekeeping, McCall's, Pictorial Review, Woman's Home Companion, and Delineator. Capturing the interest of readers and advertisers, these jourbanals published reliable service departments, fiction, and investigative reporting; however, competition eventually bred editorial caution. This, coupled with the depression of the 1930s, led to a narrowing of content and the beginning of Betty Friedan's feminine mystique. After World War II, the jourbanals faced competition from television. The women's liberation movement and women's entry into the work force also brought changes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313306754
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	07/30/1998
Series:	Contributions in Women's Studies
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.81(d)
Lexile:	1530L (what's this?)

About the Author

MARY ELLEN ZUCKERMAN is Associate Professor of Marketing at the Jones School of Business at SUNY—Geneseo. She is the author of Sources in the History of Women's Magazines, 1792-1960 (Greenwood, 1991) and coauthor of The Magazine in America (1991).

Table of Contents

Introduction
Women's Magazines, 1792-1918
Birth of the Big Six
Leaders in the Field
Editing the Women's Magazines
Marriage of Convenience: Advertising and Women's Magazines
What They Were Reading: Content in Women's Magazines, 1890-1918
Women's Magazines, 1919-1945
Women's Magazines in the Interwar Years
Targeting Readers
Creating the Women's Magazines
Attracting Advertising
Content in the Interwar Years
World War II
Women's Magazines, 1946-1995
Big Six to Seven Sisters
New Contenders
Epilogue
Collections Used
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

Traces the development of popular women's journals in the US and examines factors contributing to changes in content over the years. Focus is on mass-circulation magazines for middles-class white females, although there is some material on working-class journals, magazines for African American women, and suffrage journals. Concentrates on the period before the 1930s. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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