Ladies' Home Journal

==Early history==
[[File:Ladies' Home Journal Vol.8 No.06 (May, 1891).pdf|left|thumb|1891 edition of Ladies' Home Journal]]
''The Ladies' Home Journal'' was developed from a popular 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 Hermann Kotzschmar Curtis|Cyrus H. K. Curtis]].{{When|date=December 2016}}<ref name=autogenerated1>{{cite web|url= http://www.scripophily.net/curpubcom.html|work=Curtis Publishing Company|title=Saturday Evening Post & Ladies' Home Journal}}</ref> 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.<!-- reference came up as 404, unknown --> 

Knapp continued as the magazine's editor till [[Edward William Bok]] succeeded her 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>{{cite book |url= http://www.bartleby.com/197/30.html |chapter= 30. Cleaning Up the Patent-Medicine and Other Evils. |last= Bok |first= Edward William |year= 1921 |title= The Americanization of Edward Bok}}</ref> In 1896, Bok became Louisa Knapp's son-in-law when he married her daughter, [[Mary Louise Curtis Bok Zimbalist|Mary Louise Curtis]]. ''LHJ'' rapidly became the leading American magazine of its type, reaching a subscribed circulation of more than one million copies by 1903, the first American magazine to do so.<ref name="santana"/> <!-- Where published? obviously a Midwest magazine -->

Bok served until 1919.  Among features he introduced was the popular "Ruth Ashmore advice column" written by [[Isabel Mallon]].<ref name="ruth1">{{cite news|date= December 28, 1898|url= https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1898/12/28/102530031.pdf|title=Ruth Ashmore" Dead: A Well-Known Writer Succumbs to Pneumonia, Following Grip|work= [[The New York Times]]}}</ref>  At the turn of the 20th century, the magazine published the work of [[muckraker]]s and social reformers such as [[Jane Addams]]. In 1901 it published two articles highlighting the early architectural designs of [[Frank Lloyd Wright]].<ref>{{cite journal|title=A Home in a Prairie Town|date= February 1901|journal= Ladies' Home Journal}}{{full citation needed|date=April 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |title= A Small Home with 'Lots of Room in It'|journal=Ladies' Home Journal|date=July 1901}}{{full citation needed|date= April 2014}}</ref>  The December 1909 issue included a comic strip which was the first appearance of [[Kewpie]], created by [[Rose O'Neill]].<ref name="mhs">{{cite web|url=http://shs.umsystem.edu/historicmissourians/name/o/oneill/|work=The State Historical Society of Missouri|access-date=August 9, 2013|title=Rose O'Neill|archive-date=April 20, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160420202337/http://shsmo.org/historicmissourians/name/o/oneill/}}</ref>

Bok introduced business practices at the ''Ladies' Home Journal'' that contributed to its success: low subscription rates, inclusion of advertising to off-set costs, and reliance on popular content. This operating structure was adopted by men's magazines like ''[[McClure's]]'' and [[Munsey's Magazine|''Munsey's'']] roughly a decade after it had become the standard practice of American women's magazines.  Scholars argue that women's magazines, like the ''Ladies' Home Journal'', pioneered these strategies "[http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-2536601594.html magazine revolution]".<ref>{{cite journal |last= Waller-Zuckerman |first= Mary Ellen |title= 'Old Homes, in a City of Perpetual Change': Women's Magazines, 1890-1916 |journal= The Business History Review |volume= 63 |issue= 4 |date= Winter 1989 |pages= 715–756 |doi=10.2307/3115961|jstor= 3115961 |s2cid= 154336370 }}</ref>

There was also a controversial aspect to the magazine during Edward Bok's tenure. He authored more than twenty articles opposed to [[women's suffrage]] which threatened his "vision of the woman at home, living the simple life".<ref>{{cite book |last=Richie |first=Rachel |date=March 22, 2019 |title=Women in Magazines, Research, Representation, Production and Consumption |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5WqaCwAAQBAJ&dq=edward+bok+feminism+ladies+home+journal&pg=PA217 |publisher=Routledge |page=217 |isbn=978-0-367-26395-9}}</ref> He opposed the concept of women working outside the home, [[Woman's club movement|woman'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 change his mind to become a supporter of women's suffrage). Bok viewed [[suffragists]] as traitors to their sex, saying "there is no greater enemy of woman than woman herself."<ref name=Marshall1997>{{cite book |last=Marshall |first=Susan E. |title=Splintered Sisterhood |url=https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&q=there+is+no+greater+enemy+of+woman+than+woman+herself+Edward+Bok |publisher=University of Wisconsin Press |page=85, 104 |date=1997 |isbn=978-0-299-15463-9 }}</ref>

During World War II, the ''Ladies' Home Journal'' was a particularly favored venue of the government to place articles intended for homemakers, in an effort to keep up morale and support.<ref>{{cite book |author= Emily Yellin |year= 2004 |title= Our Mothers' War |location= New York |publisher= Free Press |page= [https://archive.org/details/ourmotherswarame00yell/page/23 23] |isbn= 0-7432-4514-8 |url-access= registration |url= https://archive.org/details/ourmotherswarame00yell }}</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 prosperity. By 1955, each issue sold 4.6 million copies and there were probably 11 million readers.<ref>Ward, "The Geography of the Ladies' Home Journal"</ref>

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