Women and Magazines in the 19th Century: Introduction

Although an everday object today (or perhaps even a dying medium), the magazine has been a staple in Western arts and leisure. In the United States, the magazine began to boom following the Civil War, when printing became more readily accesible. Since that time, magazine sales have increased steadily and the magazine business turned into a powerful industry. This industry developed just as the United States emerged from the Industrial Revolution, and the middle class had been born. This new middle class had an optimal target for magazine readership: women. Female readership and magazines worked together to promote each other - as magazine sales from women increased, the magazines in turn became more targeted towards the women. This in turn, served to develop a new sense of womanhood and ideals of feminitity in the household.

The printing press was not new to the United States, but after the Civil War, magazines began to steadily become more common in the daily life of Americans. Mary Ellen Waller-Zuckerman argues that “The start of a new era of low-price, high-volume magazine subsidized by advertizing revenues,” (1) was brought to the United States. Part of the reason magazines became so successful was due to the increase of leisure time for the emerging middle class. According to Heather Haveman, literacy, urbanization, and an increase in leisure time all contributed to the growth in magazines, while “audiences for magazines not only grew in numbers and became more urban but also became more literate,” (78). This literacy aided a drive for reading material, which boosted magazine sales nationwide. Additionally, after the Industrial Revolution, a more defined day was built for Americans, with work time and leisure time being determined by the hours spent at the office versus the hours spent at home. As the economy, printing, and leisure time grew, it provided more time for Americans to be reading, and as the magazine industry grew, it allowed for more Americans to have access to these magazines.

While the economy grew, so did the amount of women who stayed home while their husbands worked. This opened up for a large audience of female readers. Once the market for women readers was found, the market began growing in huge numbers. Again, Haveman states that “women’s magazines rose from a total of 22 annual observations on magazines between 1741 and 1794 (.4 per year, on average) to 559 in the 1850’s (56 per year)” (49) which meant that publishers realized how well magazines sold to women and began tapping into the new and lucrative market. This allowed magazines to begin targeting to women and adjusting their content and marketing themselves to wives and homemakers.