Looks at the changes in women's mass circulation journals since at the end of the 19th century.

Throughout their history, women's mass circulation journals 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 journals 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 Journal, Good Housekeeping, McCall's, Pictorial Review, Woman's Home Companion, and Delineator. Capturing the interest of readers and advertisers, these journals 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 journals faced competition from television. The women's liberation movement and women's entry into the work force also brought changes.

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

Reviews
...[T]he best developed portions of her book deal with the editors who shaped the publications in the years between 1890 and 1940. Each recieves a concise and highly readable summary of its circulation, markets, advertisers. and content....the author does provide thumbnail sketches of the winners and losers and identifies the major challenges in women's magazines. For academic and research collections.—Choice

[A]n excellent reference resource.—Feminist Collections

This book offers not just institutional histories of the leading titles but also an explanation of the industry forces that have shaped this market as a whole. It further provides eye-opening perspectives on phenomena that today's students assume to be modern problems, such as the commodification of audiences.—Journalism History

[I]mpressive research and a wealth of information.—The Journal of American History

Endorsements
This is truly a one-of-a-kind book, the most comprehensive and thorough treatment ever of women's magazines in America, a genre important in the history of American media and vital today as well. What we have here is a well-crafted and analytical fusion of economic and cultural history that illuminates these media institutions with clarity and purpose.—Everette E. Dennis^LDistinguished Professor of Communication^LFordham Graduate School of Business

Mary Ellen Zuckerman's [book] is one of the most valuable contributions to media history I have seen in a very long time. It would be hard to exaggerate the influence of these publications in America's cultural life, as we can see increasingly. The dimensions of this subject have been outlined by other historians, but [she] has given us an in-depth study that, for the first time, makes clear, in absorbing detail, the role of these magazines in our lives. The book is an admirably researched, well-told account of an aspect of media never before so thoroughly explored.—John Tebbel^LFormer Chairman, Department of Journalism^LNew York University

Covering the period from the Civil War to the end of the 20th century, [this book] provides fascinating information about a wide range of issues in social, businesses and economic, and, of course, women's history. The studies of details of the editing, publishing, and sales of these magazines, and of their use of advertising to attract the desired audience, as well as the analysis of the changing contents of the articles published and their relation to emerging social and cultural patterns, make this book important for all interested in understanding changes in society at this time.—Stanley L. Engerman^LJohn H. Munro Professor of Economics and Professor of History^LUniversity of Rochester