'''Ladies' Home Journal''' is a
magazine which first appeared on
February 16,
1883, as a women's supplement to the ''Tribune and Farmer,'' published by
Cyrus H. Curtis. It arose from a popular "women's column" written by his wife,
Louisa Knapp.
[1] The following year it became an independent publication. Its original name was ''Ladies' Home Journal and Practical Housekeeper,'' but it dropped the last three words in 1886.
[2] It rapidly became the leading magazine of its type, reaching a circulation of more than one million copies in ten years.
[3]
It was published by the
Curtis Publishing Company and edited by Louisa Knapp, until she was succeeded by
Edward William Bok in
1889. In 1892, it became the first magazine to refuse patent medicine ads.
[4] At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the magazine published the work of social reformers and
muckrakers like
Jane Addams.
One of the magazine's most popular and enduring features is "Can This Marriage Be Saved?", in which each half of a couple in a troubled marriage explains the problem, and a
marriage counselor explains the solutions offered in counseling and the outcome.
[5]
An article in the late 1970s featured
Elizabeth Taylor, who was shown in a large picture on the cover, wearing a red gingham dress--no hint of her figure, just her face, hair and shoulders, and one arm raised with a hand in her hair.
In
1986, the Ladies' Home Journal was acquired by the
Meredith Corporation.
[6]
In the late 1950s,
Mad Magazine satirized the periodical, in what is likely their harshest 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
Cover Gallery
Notes
1. [1]
2. [2]
3. [3]
4. [4]
5. [5]
6. [6]
External links
★
Official site