Redbook
Encyclopedia
Redbook is an American women's magazine published by the Hearst Corporation
. It is one of the "Seven Sisters
", a group of women's service magazines.
When White left to edit Appleton's Magazine
, he was replaced by Karl Edwin Harriman, who edited The Red Book Magazine and its sister publications The Blue Book
and The Green Book until 1912. Under Harriman the magazine was promoted as "the largest illustrated fiction magazine in the world" and increased its price from 10 cents to 15 cents. According to Endres and Lueck (p. 299), "Red Book was trying to convey the message that it offered something for everyone, and, indeed, it did... There was short fiction by talented writers such as Jack London
, Sinclair Lewis
, Edith Wharton
and Hamlin Garland
. Stories were about love, crime, mystery, politics, animals, adventure and history (especially the old West and the Civil War)."
Harriman was succeeded by Ray Long. When Long went on to edit Hearst's Cosmopolitan
in January 1918, Harriman returned as editor, bringing such coups as a series of Tarzan
stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs
. During this period the cover price was raised to 25 cents.
In 1927, Edwin Balmer
, a short-story writer who had written for the magazine, took over as editor; in the summer of 1929 the magazine was bought by McCall Corporation
, which changed the name to Redbook but kept Balmer on as editor. He published stories by such writers as Booth Tarkington
and F. Scott Fitzgerald
, nonfiction pieces by women such as Shirley Temple
's mother and Eleanor Roosevelt
, and articles on the Wall Street Crash of 1929
by men like Cornelius Vanderbilt
and Eddie Cantor
, as well as a complete novel in each issue. Dashiell Hammett
's The Thin Man
was published in Redbook. Balmer made it a general-interest magazine for both men and women.
Circulation hit a million in 1937, and success continued until the late 1940s, when the rise of television
began to drain readers and the magazine lost touch with its demographic. In 1948 it lost $400,000, and the next year Balmer was replaced by Wade Hampton Nichols, who had edited various movie magazines. Phillips Wyman took over as publisher. Nichols decided to concentrate on "young adults" between 18 and 34 and turned the magazine around. By 1950 circulation reached two million, and the following year the cover price was raised to 35 cents. It published articles on racial prejudice, the dangers of nuclear weapons, and the damage caused by McCarthyism, among other topics. In 1954, Redbook received the Benjamin Franklin Award for public service.
The next year, as the magazine was beginning to steer towards a female audience, Wyman died, and in 1958 Nichols left to edit Good Housekeeping
. The new editor was Robert Stein, who continued the focus on women and featured authors such as Dr. Benjamin Spock
and Margaret Mead
. In 1965 he was replaced by Sey Chassler, during whose 17-year tenure circulation increased to nearly five million and the magazine earned a number of awards, including two National Magazine Awards for fiction. His New York Times obituary says, "A strong advocate for women's rights, Mr. Chassler started an unusual effort in 1976 that led to the simultaneous publication of articles about the proposed equal rights amendment in 36 women's magazines. He did it again three years later with 33 magazines." He retired in 1981 and was replaced by Anne Mollegen Smith, the first woman editor, who had been with the magazine since 1967, serving as fiction editor and managing editor.
Norton Simon
Inc., which had purchased the McCall Corporation
, sold Redbook to the Charter Company
in 1975. In 1982, Charter sold the magazine to the Hearst Corporation
, and in April 1983 Smith was fired and replaced by Annette Capone, who "de-emphasized the traditional fiction, featured more celebrity covers, and gave a lot of coverage to exercise, fitness, and nutrition. The main focus was on the young woman who was balancing family, home, and career." (Endres and Lueck, p. 305) After Ellen R. Levine took over as editor in 1991, even less fiction was published, and the focus was on the young mother. Levine said, "We couldn't be the magazine we wanted to be with such a big audience, you have to lose your older readers. We did it the minute I walked in the door. It was part of the deal."
Levine moved to Good Housekeeping
in 1994, being replaced by McCall's
Kate White, who left for Cosmopolitan
four years later. Succeeding editors were Lesley Jane Seymour (1998-2001), Ellen Kunes (2001-2004), and Stacy Morrison (2004-present)
, to provide inspirational testimonies and advice on life.
Hearst Corporation
The Hearst Corporation is an American media conglomerate based in the Hearst Tower, Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. Founded by William Randolph Hearst as an owner of newspapers, the company's holdings now include a wide variety of media...
. It is one of the "Seven Sisters
Seven Sisters (magazines)
The Seven Sisters are a group of magazines which have traditionally been aimed at married women who are homemakers with husbands and children, rather than single and working women. The name is derived from the Greek myth of the "seven sisters", also known as the Pleiades...
", a group of women's service magazines.
History
The magazine was first published in May 1903 as The Red Book Illustrated by Stumer, Rosenthal and Eckstein, a firm of Chicago retail merchants. The name was changed to The Red Book Magazine shortly thereafter. Its first editor, from 1903 to 1906, was Trumbull White, who wrote that the name was appropriate because, "Red is the color of cheerfulness, of brightness, of gayety." In its early years, the magazine published short fiction by well-known authors, including many women writers, along with photographs of popular actresses and other women of note. Within two years the magazine was a success, climbing to a circulation of 300,000.When White left to edit Appleton's Magazine
Appleton's Magazine
Appleton's Magazine was a monthly magazine published by D. Appleton & Co., New York in the late 19th century and the early 20th century. Originally called Appleton's Journal, it was published under that name from April, 1869 to December, 1881...
, he was replaced by Karl Edwin Harriman, who edited The Red Book Magazine and its sister publications The Blue Book
Blue Book (magazine)
Blue Book was a popular 20th-century American magazine with a lengthy 70-year run under various titles from 1905 to 1975.Launched as The Monthly Story Magazine, it was published under that title from May 1905 to August 1906 with a change to The Monthly Story Blue Book Magazine for issues from...
and The Green Book until 1912. Under Harriman the magazine was promoted as "the largest illustrated fiction magazine in the world" and increased its price from 10 cents to 15 cents. According to Endres and Lueck (p. 299), "Red Book was trying to convey the message that it offered something for everyone, and, indeed, it did... There was short fiction by talented writers such as Jack London
Jack London
John Griffith "Jack" London was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone...
, Sinclair Lewis
Sinclair Lewis
Harry Sinclair Lewis was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of...
, Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton , was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, short story writer, and designer.- Early life and marriage:...
and Hamlin Garland
Hamlin Garland
Hannibal Hamlin Garland was an American novelist, poet, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his fiction involving hard-working Midwestern farmers.- Biography :...
. Stories were about love, crime, mystery, politics, animals, adventure and history (especially the old West and the Civil War)."
Harriman was succeeded by Ray Long. When Long went on to edit Hearst's Cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitan (magazine)
Cosmopolitan is an international magazine for women. It was first published in 1886 in the United States as a family magazine, was later transformed into a literary magazine and eventually became a women's magazine in the late 1960s...
in January 1918, Harriman returned as editor, bringing such coups as a series of Tarzan
Tarzan
Tarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungles by the Mangani "great apes"; he later experiences civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer...
stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Rice Burroughs was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter, although he produced works in many genres.-Biography:...
. During this period the cover price was raised to 25 cents.
In 1927, Edwin Balmer
Edwin Balmer
Edwin Balmer was an American science fiction and mystery writer. He was born in Chicago to Helen Clark and Thomas Balmer. In 1909, he married Katharine MacHarg, sister of the writer William MacHarg. After her death, he married Grace A. Kee in 1927.He began as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune...
, a short-story writer who had written for the magazine, took over as editor; in the summer of 1929 the magazine was bought by McCall Corporation
McCall Corporation
McCall Corporation was an American publishing company that produced some popular magazines. These included Redbook for women, Bluebook for men, McCall's, the Saturday Review, and Popular Mechanics...
, which changed the name to Redbook but kept Balmer on as editor. He published stories by such writers as Booth Tarkington
Booth Tarkington
Booth Tarkington was an American novelist and dramatist best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novels The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams...
and F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost...
, nonfiction pieces by women such as Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple Black , born Shirley Jane Temple, is an American film and television actress, singer, dancer, autobiographer, and former U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia...
's mother and Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and became an advocate for civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt continued to be an international...
, and articles on the Wall Street Crash of 1929
Wall Street Crash of 1929
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 , also known as the Great Crash, and the Stock Market Crash of 1929, was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its fallout...
by men like Cornelius Vanderbilt
Cornelius Vanderbilt
Cornelius Vanderbilt , also known by the sobriquet Commodore, was an American entrepreneur who built his wealth in shipping and railroads. He was also the patriarch of the Vanderbilt family and one of the richest Americans in history...
and Eddie Cantor
Eddie Cantor
Eddie Cantor was an American "illustrated song" performer, comedian, dancer, singer, actor and songwriter...
, as well as a complete novel in each issue. Dashiell Hammett
Dashiell Hammett
Samuel Dashiell Hammett was an American author of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories, and political activist. Among the enduring characters he created are Sam Spade , Nick and Nora Charles , and the Continental Op .In addition to the significant influence his novels and stories had on...
's The Thin Man
The Thin Man
The Thin Man is a detective novel by Dashiell Hammett, originally published in Redbook. Although he never wrote a sequel, the book became the basis for a successful six-part film series which also began in 1934 with The Thin Man and starred William Powell and Myrna Loy...
was published in Redbook. Balmer made it a general-interest magazine for both men and women.
Radio
On May 26, 1932, the publisher launched its own radio series, Redbook Magazine Radio Dramas, syndicated dramatizations of stories from the magazine. Stories were selected by Balmer, who also served as the program's host.Circulation hit a million in 1937, and success continued until the late 1940s, when the rise of television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
began to drain readers and the magazine lost touch with its demographic. In 1948 it lost $400,000, and the next year Balmer was replaced by Wade Hampton Nichols, who had edited various movie magazines. Phillips Wyman took over as publisher. Nichols decided to concentrate on "young adults" between 18 and 34 and turned the magazine around. By 1950 circulation reached two million, and the following year the cover price was raised to 35 cents. It published articles on racial prejudice, the dangers of nuclear weapons, and the damage caused by McCarthyism, among other topics. In 1954, Redbook received the Benjamin Franklin Award for public service.
The next year, as the magazine was beginning to steer towards a female audience, Wyman died, and in 1958 Nichols left to edit Good Housekeeping
Good Housekeeping
Good Housekeeping is a women's magazine owned by the Hearst Corporation, featuring articles about women's interests, product testing by The Good Housekeeping Institute, recipes, diet, health as well as literary articles. It is well known for the "Good Housekeeping Seal," popularly known as the...
. The new editor was Robert Stein, who continued the focus on women and featured authors such as Dr. Benjamin Spock
Benjamin Spock
Benjamin McLane Spock was an American pediatrician whose book Baby and Child Care, published in 1946, is one of the biggest best-sellers of all time. Its message to mothers is that "you know more than you think you do."Spock was the first pediatrician to study psychoanalysis to try to understand...
and Margaret Mead
Margaret Mead
Margaret Mead was an American cultural anthropologist, who was frequently a featured writer and speaker in the mass media throughout the 1960s and 1970s....
. In 1965 he was replaced by Sey Chassler, during whose 17-year tenure circulation increased to nearly five million and the magazine earned a number of awards, including two National Magazine Awards for fiction. His New York Times obituary says, "A strong advocate for women's rights, Mr. Chassler started an unusual effort in 1976 that led to the simultaneous publication of articles about the proposed equal rights amendment in 36 women's magazines. He did it again three years later with 33 magazines." He retired in 1981 and was replaced by Anne Mollegen Smith, the first woman editor, who had been with the magazine since 1967, serving as fiction editor and managing editor.
Norton Simon
Norton Simon
Norton Winfred Simon , in the United States was a millionaire industrialist and philanthropist based in California. A significant art collector, he is the namesake of the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California.-Early life:...
Inc., which had purchased the McCall Corporation
McCall Corporation
McCall Corporation was an American publishing company that produced some popular magazines. These included Redbook for women, Bluebook for men, McCall's, the Saturday Review, and Popular Mechanics...
, sold Redbook to the Charter Company
Charter Company
The Charter Company of Jacksonville, Florida was a conglomerate with more than 180 subsidiaries that was in the Fortune 500 for 11 years beginning in 1974 and ranked 61st in 1984 before it sought bankruptcy protection in late 1984 and spiraled into obscurity....
in 1975. In 1982, Charter sold the magazine to the Hearst Corporation
Hearst Corporation
The Hearst Corporation is an American media conglomerate based in the Hearst Tower, Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. Founded by William Randolph Hearst as an owner of newspapers, the company's holdings now include a wide variety of media...
, and in April 1983 Smith was fired and replaced by Annette Capone, who "de-emphasized the traditional fiction, featured more celebrity covers, and gave a lot of coverage to exercise, fitness, and nutrition. The main focus was on the young woman who was balancing family, home, and career." (Endres and Lueck, p. 305) After Ellen R. Levine took over as editor in 1991, even less fiction was published, and the focus was on the young mother. Levine said, "We couldn't be the magazine we wanted to be with such a big audience, you have to lose your older readers. We did it the minute I walked in the door. It was part of the deal."
Levine moved to Good Housekeeping
Good Housekeeping
Good Housekeeping is a women's magazine owned by the Hearst Corporation, featuring articles about women's interests, product testing by The Good Housekeeping Institute, recipes, diet, health as well as literary articles. It is well known for the "Good Housekeeping Seal," popularly known as the...
in 1994, being replaced by McCall's
McCall's
McCall's was a monthly American women's magazine that enjoyed great popularity through much of the 20th century, peaking at a readership of 8.4 million in the early 1960s. It was established as a small-format magazine called The Queen in 1873...
Kate White, who left for Cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitan (magazine)
Cosmopolitan is an international magazine for women. It was first published in 1886 in the United States as a family magazine, was later transformed into a literary magazine and eventually became a women's magazine in the late 1960s...
four years later. Succeeding editors were Lesley Jane Seymour (1998-2001), Ellen Kunes (2001-2004), and Stacy Morrison (2004-present)
Coverage
Redbooks articles are primarily targeted towards married women. The magazine features stories about women dealing with modern hardships, aspiring for intellectual growth, and encouraging other women to work together for humanitarian causes. The magazine profiles successful women, such as Christa MillerChrista Miller
Christa Miller is an American actress who has achieved success in television comedy. Her foremost roles include Kate O'Brien on The Drew Carey Show and Jordan Sullivan on Scrubs . She has also appeared on Seinfeld and CSI: Miami...
, to provide inspirational testimonies and advice on life.