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Woman's Home Companion
Woman's Home Companion was an American monthly magazine, published from 1873 to 1957. It was highly successful, climbing to a circulation peak of more than four million during the 1930s and 1940s. The magazine, headquartered in Springfield, Ohio, was discontinued in 1957.
Among the contributors to the magazine were editor Gene Gauntier, and authors Temple Bailey, Ellis Parker Butler, Rachel Carson, Arthur Guiterman, Patricia Highsmith, Shirley Jackson, Anita Loos, Neysa McMein, Kathleen Norris, Sylvia Schur, John Steinbeck, Willa Cather, Frank Albert Waugh and P. G. Wodehouse. Notable illustrators included Rolf Armstrong, Władysław T. Benda, Elizabeth Shippen Green, Bessie Pease Gutmann, Rico Lebrun, Neysa McMein, Violet Oakley, Herbert Paus, May Wilson Preston, Olive Rush, Arthur Sarnoff and Frederic Dorr Steele.
Spurred on by the success of other mail-order monthlies, two brothers, S.L. and Frederick Thorpe of Cleveland, Ohio started their magazine in 1874. The magazine called The Home was only eight pages in size, produced on cheap paper and the subscription price was fifty cents a year. The content consisted of household articles, fiction by unknown writers and advertisements mostly for mail-order items. A year after Frederick died in 1877, S.L. acquired another Cleveland periodical called Little Ones at Home. Thorpe consolidated both titles under the new title of Home Companion: A Monthly for Young People. According to Thorpe, but not verified officially circulation reached eighty-eight thousand. Thorpe had been studying medicine, and when he started his practice in 1881, he sold the paper to E.B. Harvey and Frank S. Finn. In 1882, after starting a higher-class magazine without advertising called Young Folks' Circle, Harvey & Finn sold The Home Companion to Mast, Crowell, & Kirkpatrick of Springfield, Ohio.
Phineas P. Mast had hired John Crowell of Lexington, Kentucky to launch and manage Farm & Fireside magazine in Springfield, Ohio. P.P. Mast made his money through agricultural equipment and wanted a magazine to promote his wares. Farm & Fireside launched in 1877, and the firm acquired The Home Companion in 1883 after realizing the market for content aimed at women. Crowell then purchased Harvey & Finn's Young Folks' Circle in 1884, which was absorbed into The Home Companion two years later. In November 1886, the name of the periodical was changed to Ladies' Home Companion. Mast's nephew, T.J. Kirkpatrick was the first general editor of the periodical.
During the 1880s, the magazine changed size and length, and the quality of the content was improved by the addition of writers such as Maria Louise Pool, James Otis, and Eben E. Rexford. Now published semi-monthly, an important feature of the magazine was a Practical Housekeeping department, which was created by Eliza R. Parker. Woodcuts were used for illustration and at times the magazine reprinted articles from other magazines. Coverage was given to food, fashion, and serialized fiction. Topics covered included—household budgeting, home building, and furnishing, needlework, health, childcare, and etiquette. By 1889 circulation had reached eighty thousand, and, in 1890, it hit one hundred thousand. It was considered a leader in the field of women's interest magazines.
The cover was created for the first time for the Christmas issue of 1891—covers would not become a regular feature until three or four years later and halftone pictures made from photographs would appear in 1891. It was in 1893 that the price of the magazine was raised to one dollar a year. At the time the Companion competed with the Ladies' Home Journal which was twice as long, only published twelve times a year, and had a much larger circulation. To compete, the Companion went to a monthly publication and cut the price back to fifty cents—at the same time it upped the quality of its articles and writers. Circulation soon rose to 300,000 by 1898—still only half of the Ladies' Home Journal. To further the distance—the Companion's name was officially changed to Woman's Home Companion in 1896. According to Frank L. Mott's History of the American Magazine, the editor, presumably Joseph F. Henderson, wrote of the change in the January 1887 edition:
The indiscriminate use and abuse of the term "lady" has robbed it of so much of its meaning that it has been in a measure tabooed by those who deserve the title in its best sense. The noblest ambition of our end-of-the-century femininity is to be a "woman."..."Woman" is an honest Anglo-Saxon word, and has no synonym. The use of "lady" as a synonym for "woman" is vulgar.
During the 1890s in addition to housekeeping tips the magazine also covered subjects such as college education for girls, women in the arts and civil service, travel abroad, women's clubs and health. There was no mention of the war with Spain except for one article on the American Red Cross in the September 1898 issue.
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Woman's Home Companion
Woman's Home Companion was an American monthly magazine, published from 1873 to 1957. It was highly successful, climbing to a circulation peak of more than four million during the 1930s and 1940s. The magazine, headquartered in Springfield, Ohio, was discontinued in 1957.
Among the contributors to the magazine were editor Gene Gauntier, and authors Temple Bailey, Ellis Parker Butler, Rachel Carson, Arthur Guiterman, Patricia Highsmith, Shirley Jackson, Anita Loos, Neysa McMein, Kathleen Norris, Sylvia Schur, John Steinbeck, Willa Cather, Frank Albert Waugh and P. G. Wodehouse. Notable illustrators included Rolf Armstrong, Władysław T. Benda, Elizabeth Shippen Green, Bessie Pease Gutmann, Rico Lebrun, Neysa McMein, Violet Oakley, Herbert Paus, May Wilson Preston, Olive Rush, Arthur Sarnoff and Frederic Dorr Steele.
Spurred on by the success of other mail-order monthlies, two brothers, S.L. and Frederick Thorpe of Cleveland, Ohio started their magazine in 1874. The magazine called The Home was only eight pages in size, produced on cheap paper and the subscription price was fifty cents a year. The content consisted of household articles, fiction by unknown writers and advertisements mostly for mail-order items. A year after Frederick died in 1877, S.L. acquired another Cleveland periodical called Little Ones at Home. Thorpe consolidated both titles under the new title of Home Companion: A Monthly for Young People. According to Thorpe, but not verified officially circulation reached eighty-eight thousand. Thorpe had been studying medicine, and when he started his practice in 1881, he sold the paper to E.B. Harvey and Frank S. Finn. In 1882, after starting a higher-class magazine without advertising called Young Folks' Circle, Harvey & Finn sold The Home Companion to Mast, Crowell, & Kirkpatrick of Springfield, Ohio.
Phineas P. Mast had hired John Crowell of Lexington, Kentucky to launch and manage Farm & Fireside magazine in Springfield, Ohio. P.P. Mast made his money through agricultural equipment and wanted a magazine to promote his wares. Farm & Fireside launched in 1877, and the firm acquired The Home Companion in 1883 after realizing the market for content aimed at women. Crowell then purchased Harvey & Finn's Young Folks' Circle in 1884, which was absorbed into The Home Companion two years later. In November 1886, the name of the periodical was changed to Ladies' Home Companion. Mast's nephew, T.J. Kirkpatrick was the first general editor of the periodical.
During the 1880s, the magazine changed size and length, and the quality of the content was improved by the addition of writers such as Maria Louise Pool, James Otis, and Eben E. Rexford. Now published semi-monthly, an important feature of the magazine was a Practical Housekeeping department, which was created by Eliza R. Parker. Woodcuts were used for illustration and at times the magazine reprinted articles from other magazines. Coverage was given to food, fashion, and serialized fiction. Topics covered included—household budgeting, home building, and furnishing, needlework, health, childcare, and etiquette. By 1889 circulation had reached eighty thousand, and, in 1890, it hit one hundred thousand. It was considered a leader in the field of women's interest magazines.
The cover was created for the first time for the Christmas issue of 1891—covers would not become a regular feature until three or four years later and halftone pictures made from photographs would appear in 1891. It was in 1893 that the price of the magazine was raised to one dollar a year. At the time the Companion competed with the Ladies' Home Journal which was twice as long, only published twelve times a year, and had a much larger circulation. To compete, the Companion went to a monthly publication and cut the price back to fifty cents—at the same time it upped the quality of its articles and writers. Circulation soon rose to 300,000 by 1898—still only half of the Ladies' Home Journal. To further the distance—the Companion's name was officially changed to Woman's Home Companion in 1896. According to Frank L. Mott's History of the American Magazine, the editor, presumably Joseph F. Henderson, wrote of the change in the January 1887 edition:
The indiscriminate use and abuse of the term "lady" has robbed it of so much of its meaning that it has been in a measure tabooed by those who deserve the title in its best sense. The noblest ambition of our end-of-the-century femininity is to be a "woman."..."Woman" is an honest Anglo-Saxon word, and has no synonym. The use of "lady" as a synonym for "woman" is vulgar.
During the 1890s in addition to housekeeping tips the magazine also covered subjects such as college education for girls, women in the arts and civil service, travel abroad, women's clubs and health. There was no mention of the war with Spain except for one article on the American Red Cross in the September 1898 issue.