''Woman's Day'' is an American
women's monthly magazine
''The Monthly Magazine'' (1796–1843) of London began publication in February 1796.
Contributors
Richard Phillips was the publisher and a contributor on political issues. The editor for the first ten years was a literary jack-of-all-trades, Dr ...
that covers such topics as
homemaking, food,
nutrition
Nutrition is the biochemical and physiological process by which an organism uses food to support its life. It provides organisms with nutrients, which can be metabolized to create energy and chemical structures. Failure to obtain sufficient ...
,
physical fitness,
physical attractiveness
Physical attractiveness is the degree to which a person's physical features are considered aesthetically pleasing or beautiful. The term often implies sexual attractiveness or desirability, but can also be distinct from either. There are many ...
, and
fashion
Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fashion i ...
. The print edition is one of the
Seven Sisters magazines. The magazine was first published in 1931 by
The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company
The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, better known as A&P, was an American chain of grocery stores that operated from 1859 to 2015. From 1915 through 1975, A&P was the largest grocery retailer in the United States (and, until 1965, the lar ...
; the current publisher is
Hearst Corporation.
History
A&P began publishing the U.S. edition as a free in-store menu/recipe planner, calculated to make customers buy more by giving them meal ideas in an easy-to-read format available inside A&P
grocery stores
A grocery store ( AE), grocery shop ( BE) or simply grocery is a store that primarily retails a general range of food products, which may be fresh or packaged. In everyday U.S. usage, however, "grocery store" is a synonym for supermarket, a ...
.
Following the 1936 opening of A&P's first modern
supermarket (in
Braddock, Pennsylvania
Braddock is a borough located in the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. It is upstream from the mouth of the Monongahela River. The population was 1,721 as of the 2020 census.
The borough is represented by the ...
), A&P expanded ''Woman's Day'' in 1937 through a wholly owned subsidiary, the Stores Publishing Company. Selling for five cents a copy (¢ today), the magazine featured articles on childcare,
craft
A craft or trade is a pastime or an occupation that requires particular skills and knowledge of skilled work. In a historical sense, particularly the Middle Ages and earlier, the term is usually applied to people occupied in small scale pro ...
s, food preparation and
cooking, home decoration, needlework and
health
Health, according to the World Health Organization, is "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity".World Health Organization. (2006)''Constitution of the World Health Organiza ...
, plus a revival of cartoonist
Walter Hoban
Walter C. Hoban (1890 - November 22, 1939) was an American cartoonist best known for his comic strip ''Jerry on the Job''.
Born in Philadelphia, Hoban came from a newspaper family. His brother Edwin was with '' The Philadelphia Inquirer'', and h ...
's ''
Jerry on the Job
''Jerry on the Job'' was a comic strip by cartoonist Walter Hoban which was set in a railroad station. Syndicated by William Randolph Hearst's International Feature Service, it ran from 1913 into the 1930s.
Origins
When Hoban was given only a w ...
''
comic strip in a 1939
Grape-Nuts
Grape-Nuts is a brand of breakfast cereal made from flour, salt and dried yeast, developed in 1897 by C. W. Post, a former patient and later competitor of the 19th-century breakfast food innovator Dr. John Harvey Kellogg. Post's original product ...
ad campaign.
Gallery
/ref>
Sold exclusively in A&P stores, ''Woman's Day'' had a circulation of 3,000,000 by 1944. This had reached 4,000,000 by the time A&P sold the magazine to Fawcett Publications
Fawcett Publications was an American publishing company founded in 1919 in Robbinsdale, Minnesota by Wilford Fawcett, Wilford Hamilton "Captain Billy" Fawcett (1885–1940).
It kicked off with the publication of the bawdy humor magazine ''Captai ...
in 1958. By 1965, ''Woman's Day'' had climbed to a circulation of 6,500,000.
In a mid-1960s appeal to Madison Avenue, an ad for ''Woman's Day'' showed a friendly pharmacist named I.A. Morse next to copy that claimed:
Fawcett was sold to CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
in 1977, and CBS, in turn, sold its magazine division to a group led by division head Peter Diamandis, who renamed the group Diamandis Communications. In 1988 ''Woman's Day'', along with the rest of Diamandis, was acquired by Hachette Filipacchi Médias
Hachette Filipacchi Médias, S.A. (HFM) is a magazine publisher. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Lagardère Active, a division of the media conglomerate Lagardère Group of France.
History
'' Hachette'' was founded by Louis Hachette (Fren ...
which published the magazine from offices at 1633 Broadway in New York. Hearst Magazines
Hearst Communications, Inc., often referred to simply as Hearst, is an American multinational mass media and business information conglomerate based in Hearst Tower in Midtown Manhattan, New York City.
Hearst owns newspapers, magazines, televis ...
bought the Hachette magazines in the US in 2011.
Editors
*Mabel Hill Souvaine (1943–1957)
*Eileen Tighe (1957–1966)
*Geraldine Rhoads (1966–1982)
*Ellen Levine (1982–1991)
*Jane Chesnutt (1991–2010)
*Elizabeth Mayhew (2010-2012)
*Susan Spencer (2012–2020)
*Meaghan Murphy (2020–present)
See also
* List of women's magazines
* List of men's magazines
This is a list of magazines primarily marketed to men. The list has been split into subcategories according to the target audience of the magazines. This list includes mostly mainstream magazines as well as adult ones. Not included here are auto ...
References
External links
*
''United We Stand'': John Clymer cover for July 1942 issue
{{The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company
Monthly magazines published in the United States
Women's magazines published in the United States
Food and drink magazines
The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company
Hearst Communications publications
Magazines established in 1931
Magazines published in New York City
Fawcett Publications