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The History and Growth of Women's Magazines · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this Sanny and Samantha and what kind of stephone
0:07
Speaker 1: never told you a protection of iHeart radio.
0:18
Speaker 2: And welcome y'all. This is our first full episode, isn't
0:23
Speaker 2: it of the year? It is? It is, And I
0:27
Speaker 2: am not off to a great start because what I
0:31
Speaker 2: originally had planned versus what we have versus what it
0:36
Speaker 2: has extended to. Of course, this is my job, y'all anyway,
0:42
Speaker 2: but yes, we were happy to come back and do
0:46
Speaker 2: finally a full episode after being on Vaca Slash also
0:50
Speaker 2: being sick. Really weird start to the year. But you know, recently,
0:56
Speaker 2: I think we actually mentioned how we had some great
0:59
Speaker 2: conversation with people in our lives, specifically about gender roles
1:04
Speaker 2: and how traditions and expectations have really structured our internal
1:09
Speaker 2: judgment of ourselves and what we think traditions should look like. Specifically,
1:15
Speaker 2: I was talking with my partner's mother, who has some
1:18
Speaker 2: amazing stories of how she was able to overcome sexist
1:22
Speaker 2: bias in her industry and in her life overall. She
1:26
Speaker 2: is a Georgia Tech alum, so one of your people's anies.
1:31
Speaker 2: She was one of the first in the pharmacy program
1:34
Speaker 2: and graduated like she was super young too, like really
1:37
Speaker 2: huge accolades to her. She did some amazing things. I
1:40
Speaker 2: remember when we were talking, my face is kind of like,
1:43
Speaker 2: what what because she was talking about everything she was
1:46
Speaker 2: involved in, and I was like, she was really paving
1:49
Speaker 2: some ways for a lot of women in a very
1:52
Speaker 2: technical school, and she was even told by her father
1:55
Speaker 2: she would never get in because she was like, it's
1:57
Speaker 2: a school for dudes, what are you doing? But she did.
2:00
Speaker 2: She graduated and she became a pharmacist, which is amazing
2:04
Speaker 2: in itself, but also one of the things that we
2:06
Speaker 2: also talked about while we were there was about southern
2:10
Speaker 2: magazines because holiday time, we all know that there's a
2:15
Speaker 2: lot when it comes to preparing for the holidays. We've
2:19
Speaker 2: talked about this, We've complained about this, and I have
2:21
Speaker 2: told you I would never do it. I'm over it,
2:23
Speaker 2: don't I haven't even started it. I'm not going to
2:25
Speaker 2: do it. But she talked about how she grew up
2:29
Speaker 2: reading southern magazines, specifically when we will talk about later
2:32
Speaker 2: Southern Living, and how she was really taught this is
2:36
Speaker 2: the way you were supposed to be as a woman.
2:38
Speaker 2: That everything you see in this magazine if you want
2:41
Speaker 2: to be a perfect successful woman in the South. This
2:45
Speaker 2: is what you follow, uh, And my mother was very
2:48
Speaker 2: close to that, as in fact, my house had tons
2:51
Speaker 2: of Southern Living magazines. Did you have any of those?
2:53
Speaker 1: I don't remember if we had Southern Living. My mom
2:55
Speaker 1: definitely has still has a stack of magazines. I don't
2:59
Speaker 1: know how how old they are, but she they were
3:03
Speaker 1: very much in the same vein of like decoration ideas, recipes, advice,
3:10
Speaker 1: things like that. So I don't know if I had
3:12
Speaker 1: that specifically, but generally, yes.
3:14
Speaker 2: Generally something like that. And there are so many more.
3:18
Speaker 2: This magazine is so so successful that it's one of
3:22
Speaker 2: the highest grossing magazines for Time Ink. So Time Magazine's
3:26
Speaker 2: Time Ink bought it not too long ago, I don't think,
3:31
Speaker 2: And the amount that they make is unbelievable, especially being
3:36
Speaker 2: that it's only literally localized to the South. So I
3:40
Speaker 2: think it was based out of Alabama. It may be
3:43
Speaker 2: still not sure, but they circulate over I believe two
3:50
Speaker 2: point eight million copies, and that was in like that's
3:55
Speaker 2: a low number. I think at one point time They
3:57
Speaker 2: were acquired by Time Magazine for four hundred ninety eight
4:00
Speaker 2: million dollars in nineteen eighty five. So like they they
4:06
Speaker 2: made it a magazine. They made it. They're huge, and
4:11
Speaker 2: some of the other publications that Time owns is Sports Illustrated,
4:15
Speaker 2: and it literally ranks up there with them for how
4:18
Speaker 2: much they make. Yeah, and if you've ever visited a
4:25
Speaker 2: waiting room in the South, you've probably seen it yourself.
4:28
Speaker 2: If you need an example, I'm sure you can find
4:31
Speaker 2: it at the grocery store. I don't know is it
4:33
Speaker 2: available nationally, Okay.
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Speaker 1: Wonder Oh, I don't know about nashally, but I've seen
4:38
Speaker 1: it in If you come to.
4:40
Speaker 2: The South, you have seen it. There are so many
4:43
Speaker 2: replicas of it Guns and Gardens as in fact, the
4:46
Speaker 2: person I believe the old editive editor of Guns and
4:49
Speaker 2: Gardens is now the new editor of Southern Living. It's
4:54
Speaker 2: been featured by so many, uh, they they are a standard.
4:58
Speaker 2: And when I tell you, when it to holidays, they
5:02
Speaker 2: go all out and people want this magazine and try
5:05
Speaker 2: to replicate this magazine. I have seen bloggers that have
5:09
Speaker 2: tried to replicate the Perfect Southern Christmas as they call it.
5:13
Speaker 2: And it's based off of Southern Living ideals. And so
5:18
Speaker 2: when she actually brought up that magazine was talking about
5:22
Speaker 2: how it really affected her and her feeling like she
5:25
Speaker 2: has to keep up with the standard and really trying
5:27
Speaker 2: her best. And she was, unlike my mother, a working mom,
5:32
Speaker 2: so she was a pharmacist at the same time that
5:34
Speaker 2: she was raising her children doing all these things and
5:36
Speaker 2: trying to be the perfect Southern woman and making sure
5:40
Speaker 2: she kept the perfect Southern home and make sure that
5:43
Speaker 2: Christmas was a Christmas wonderland. And again, I know we've
5:46
Speaker 2: talked about our own parents. You do some things with
5:49
Speaker 2: your parents, your mother, but like my mother goes all
5:53
Speaker 2: the way out and one day I'm gonna have to
5:56
Speaker 2: take pictures because the way she has like themed areas,
5:59
Speaker 2: not at one, but themed areas with two Christmas trees,
6:02
Speaker 2: three Christmas trees. So she goes all out. And my
6:07
Speaker 2: partner's mom was talking about the fact that she was like, yeah,
6:11
Speaker 2: this year, I've started to learn this was not healthy
6:15
Speaker 2: and I'm not doing it anymore, and I'm scaling back.
6:17
Speaker 2: I'm scaling back. Oh and by the way, her scaled
6:20
Speaker 2: back quote unquote of Christmas decorations is still ten one
6:24
Speaker 2: hundred times more than I have ever tried. Like I
6:28
Speaker 2: walked in, I was like, what it looks, It's great.
6:32
Speaker 2: It's very pristine and pretty, and like I was like, oh,
6:35
Speaker 2: look at all this Christmas stuff and she's like, this
6:37
Speaker 2: is scaled back, and I was like, wow, Okay, I
6:40
Speaker 2: wonder what it used to I wonder if it used
6:41
Speaker 2: to be like on par with my mother with themes
6:44
Speaker 2: in every room. Who knows. And of course, just a
6:48
Speaker 2: disclaimer here, because I've been thinking about this previously, loving
6:53
Speaker 2: Christmas and the holidays and going all out. We're not
6:57
Speaker 2: trying to tell anyone that that's a bad thing or
6:59
Speaker 2: critics that at all in that way. If you love it,
7:03
Speaker 2: keep doing it. I love seeing it. I literally met
7:07
Speaker 2: went to one of our neighbor's house and she has
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Speaker 2: so many holiday I mean she had I think we
7:13
Speaker 2: counted twelve trees, like whoa. Not all of them were
7:17
Speaker 2: full size, but they were decorated and they were everywhere,
7:20
Speaker 2: and she was so excited to show it off and
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Speaker 2: it was beautiful and she was so excited about talking
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Speaker 2: about all of them and just like how she loves Christmas.
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Speaker 2: And I'm like, that's amazing. I wish I was that person.
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Speaker 2: I want to be that person. How do I become
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Speaker 2: that person? So doing that makes you happy? Please know
7:38
Speaker 2: that we are happy for you. We're just pointing out
7:41
Speaker 2: that most of the time these types of activities are
7:44
Speaker 2: typically women's responsibilities and often add more labor and work
7:49
Speaker 2: for women, and much of the past media would only
7:53
Speaker 2: deep the idea that being a good housewife would be
7:57
Speaker 2: that they would make their home again like a winter
8:00
Speaker 2: wonder later, that they were obligated to do so, and
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Speaker 2: to not do it would be a failure as a
8:04
Speaker 2: wife and a mother. So again, some of these things
8:08
Speaker 2: are amazing, and we love it and I love to
8:11
Speaker 2: see it, and if you love it, that's amazing. So
8:13
Speaker 2: please know we are not saying not to do it.
8:15
Speaker 2: We're just saying there's also that flip side and a
8:19
Speaker 2: lot of the times these types of magazines perpetuate this.
8:22
Speaker 2: But go move in on. We do with all of that.
8:27
Speaker 2: In this conversation and in the spirit of coming back
8:30
Speaker 2: to work, we did what we do best. We went
8:33
Speaker 2: down a rabbit hole of the history of women's magazines
8:37
Speaker 2: and how they have influenced us over the years. And
8:43
Speaker 2: as an ex millennial and I say X, I'm in
8:46
Speaker 2: like generation X because I'm still very confused by this
8:50
Speaker 2: that went to school before the use of the Internet,
8:55
Speaker 2: and we used magazines and encyclopedias and as our references
9:00
Speaker 2: for actual projects. Like we literally knew how to do
9:03
Speaker 2: the bibliography with that. Yeah. I read through so many
9:11
Speaker 2: teen and seventeen magazines growing up and even collected a few,
9:16
Speaker 2: not as many as I think you might have. Any
9:18
Speaker 2: Did you have a lot of magazines growing up?
9:21
Speaker 1: Uh? Yeah, I mean I don't know that I have
9:25
Speaker 1: as many as you think. I was Adventure Time, okay?
9:29
Speaker 1: Was that the magazine Busy Adventures?
9:32
Speaker 2: A new adventure Land right, something that zoom?
9:36
Speaker 1: It was towards kids, And then I did get Entertainment Weekly,
9:40
Speaker 1: but I usually just did it for like the actors
9:43
Speaker 1: I liked. Oh okay, I was thinking about this the
9:46
Speaker 1: other day. I had a really creepy trying to Ryan Gossling,
9:51
Speaker 1: and I would take like cuttings from magazines and put
9:55
Speaker 1: them in this reeseiss box.
9:59
Speaker 2: Interesting.
10:00
Speaker 1: I'm going to describe it to you in great depth
10:03
Speaker 1: later because it's really funny, but I will prevent myself
10:05
Speaker 1: from embarrassing myself.
10:07
Speaker 2: So here, Oh, I have feelings that might be on
10:10
Speaker 2: our next next episode. Oh yeah, yeah yeah, but yeah,
10:18
Speaker 2: like I like you had a few, I didn't get
10:21
Speaker 2: any subscriptions as a kid. Of course, my mom had,
10:25
Speaker 2: like I said, had some magazines. I did get some
10:27
Speaker 2: like national geographic magazines. I'm not really sure why. I
10:30
Speaker 2: don't know who handed them down. And apparently some of them,
10:33
Speaker 2: like the older ones, are worth money. I don't know.
10:35
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe that's an eBay thing. I don't know. And
10:38
Speaker 2: of course, like you, I didn't necessarily cut out to
10:41
Speaker 2: put them in a box. But I did do collages,
10:43
Speaker 2: so okay, and you need you have to have, like
10:46
Speaker 2: you know, I didn't do the ransom letter thing. That's
10:49
Speaker 2: that's too much, you know, how you cut up random letters.
10:53
Speaker 2: But you know, I think I did, like my dream
10:56
Speaker 2: something and it was all like magazine cut out essentially.
11:00
Speaker 2: Uh So, yeah, So we went to this So just
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Speaker 2: as a disclaimer, some of the things we're talking mainly
11:06
Speaker 2: about the history of it of magazines and specifically women's magazines. Again,
11:11
Speaker 2: at the end of it, we are going to kind
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Speaker 2: of talk about Southern Living because I didn't want to
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Speaker 2: bring it back to it because it's mainly subscribed by
11:16
Speaker 2: women and it was geared towards women. So we're gonna
11:20
Speaker 2: talk about that. We are going to do another episodes
11:22
Speaker 2: but I think we're going to push it back because
11:25
Speaker 2: it's going to be somewhat related to the the Reese's
11:28
Speaker 2: Box and Ryan Gosling Shrine of magazines today, including teen magazines,
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Speaker 2: though just as a big arc of like, it's not
11:36
Speaker 2: a series. I'm not doing this again any I swear
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Speaker 2: to god, I'm not.
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Speaker 1: Twelve part series.
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Speaker 2: Okay, I do want to revi of the magazines and
12:01
Speaker 2: subscriptions today, but again this is mainly about the history
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Speaker 2: of it, and I don't think there's any content warning necessary.
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Speaker 2: But you know, it's the history of magazines. And when
12:13
Speaker 2: it comes to history for things that are geared or
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Speaker 2: consumer driven towards women, who knows.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, looking condescending language perhaps, yes, yes, lots of condescending language,
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Speaker 1: a lot of consumerism, a lot of.
12:34
Speaker 2: We do talk about race even so you know, there's
12:36
Speaker 2: a whole thing, I guess, but not too triggering like
12:40
Speaker 2: yeast episode. So here we go.
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Speaker 1: Yes, all right, So when it comes to the overall
12:46
Speaker 1: history of magazines, it is of course a little bit murky.
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Speaker 1: And most of the historical timeline for magazines starts at
12:52
Speaker 1: the invention of the printing press, but pamphlets and leaflets
12:56
Speaker 1: were used before that in countries like and around the world.
13:02
Speaker 1: But going by the invention timeline, shall we say the
13:06
Speaker 1: first magazine to ever be published was the German magazine
13:10
Speaker 1: in English translated I'm not going to attempt it edifying
13:14
Speaker 1: Monthly Discussions, which was published around sixteen sixty three. I
13:18
Speaker 1: was telling Samantha, I have had four years of German
13:21
Speaker 1: I don't have the courage today to attempt it. This
13:26
Speaker 1: was quickly followed by French published magazines titled Journal de
13:31
Speaker 1: Scavans are later known as Journal da Savants in sixteen
13:35
Speaker 1: sixty five, and in that same year England would publish
13:39
Speaker 1: The Philosophical Transactions, and many more followed after that.
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Speaker 2: Obviously, according to a Britannica article, these journals quote summarize
13:47
Speaker 2: important new books, but there were as yet no literary
13:50
Speaker 2: reviews book advertisements. By about sixteen fifty, a regular feature
13:55
Speaker 2: of the news sheets sometimes had brief comments added in
13:58
Speaker 2: regular catalogs again to appear, such as the English quarterly
14:03
Speaker 2: Mercurious Librarius, I feel like I'm doing no spell or
14:08
Speaker 2: a Catalog of Books, which was published sixteen sixty eight
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Speaker 2: and sixteen seventy. But in the seventeenth century the only
14:15
Speaker 2: periodicals devoted to the books were short lived, the Weekly
14:19
Speaker 2: Memorials for the Ingenius, which was published sixteen eighty two
14:22
Speaker 2: to eighty three, which offered some critical notes on books,
14:25
Speaker 2: and the Universal Historical BiblioTech, which was from January to
14:30
Speaker 2: March in sixteen eighty six. The latter invited scholarly contributions
14:34
Speaker 2: and could thus be regarded as the two four runner
14:36
Speaker 2: of other literary reviews. So this was kind of what.
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Speaker 1: Was beginning, right And according to the same Britannica article,
14:43
Speaker 1: they say the first quote periodical of amusements or letter reads,
14:48
Speaker 1: if you will, was possibly started in sixteen seventy two,
14:51
Speaker 1: they write, quote the Mercure Gallants, renamed Mercure de France
14:55
Speaker 1: in seventeen fourteen. It was founded by the writer Jean
14:59
Speaker 1: Donaud the vis and contained court news, anecdotes and short
15:03
Speaker 1: pieces of verse, a recipe that was to prove and
15:06
Speaker 1: mostly popular and become widely imitated. And of course this
15:10
Speaker 1: would all lead up to the beginning of magazines specifically
15:12
Speaker 1: targeted to women, as the article writes, quote in sixteen
15:16
Speaker 1: ninety three, after devoting some experimental numbers of the Athenian
15:19
Speaker 1: Mercury to quote, the affair sex. Duntan brought out the
15:23
Speaker 1: first magazine specifically for women, the Lady's Mercury. So let's
15:28
Speaker 1: talk about how successful these experiments were.
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Speaker 2: Right so much like today, all of the material and
15:34
Speaker 2: content that was seen at the beginning of the women's
15:37
Speaker 2: magazine era reflected what was happening during the time. As
15:41
Speaker 2: the Britannica article writes, quote, women's magazines frequently reflect the
15:45
Speaker 2: changing view of women's role in society. In the eighteenth century,
15:49
Speaker 2: when women were expected to participate in social and political life,
15:52
Speaker 2: those magazines aimed primarily at women were relatively robust and
15:56
Speaker 2: stimulating in content. In the nineteenth when domesticity became the ideal,
16:02
Speaker 2: they were inclined to be insipid and humorless. After about
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Speaker 2: eighteen eighty, magazines began to widen their horizons again, and
16:10
Speaker 2: in seventeen seventy one of the noted first women's magazine.
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Speaker 2: And I'm going to put a disclaimer here. This is
16:16
Speaker 2: listed as the first one to be published, but we
16:19
Speaker 2: know that the dabbling began much earlier, So not the
16:23
Speaker 2: actual first women's published, but the one that is most
16:28
Speaker 2: often listed and credited as the first. It was the
16:31
Speaker 2: British magazine The Ladies Magazine very on the nose.
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Speaker 1: Yes, here's the quote from the National Portrait Gallery about
16:39
Speaker 1: the magazine. The Lady's Magazine, or Entertaining Companion for the
16:43
Speaker 1: fair Sex London, was an early monthly periodical for women
16:46
Speaker 1: which dominated the market for most of its run and
16:49
Speaker 1: aimed to amuse and improve, providing fiction, poetry, music and
16:53
Speaker 1: social gossip, as well as giving more space to fashion
16:56
Speaker 1: than its predecessors. Its first issue in August seventeen seven
17:00
Speaker 1: included as its frontispiece a plate titled A Lady in
17:04
Speaker 1: Full Dress. In August seventeen seventy and it became the
17:07
Speaker 1: first magazine in any country to regularly issue plates showing
17:11
Speaker 1: contemporary fashions. The early engravings were uncolored until about seventeen ninety,
17:15
Speaker 1: when hand colored ones were included.
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Speaker 2: And during the time following there were several other publications
17:21
Speaker 2: that came around. And here's another quote from that Britannica
17:24
Speaker 2: article quote. Later women's magazines included The Ladies Pocket Magazine
17:29
Speaker 2: eighteen twenty four to eighteen forty, The Lady's Cabinet eighteen
17:32
Speaker 2: thirty two to eighteen fifty two, the new monthly Bell
17:35
Speaker 2: Assembly eighteen forty seven to eighteen seventy and The Lady's
17:39
Speaker 2: Treasury eighteen fifty seven to eighteen ninety five all contained
17:43
Speaker 2: verse fiction and articles of high moral tone but low
17:47
Speaker 2: intellectual contents. And the quote continues pointing out that there
17:51
Speaker 2: were magazines that had a bit more depth, but they
17:54
Speaker 2: didn't really survive. The article reads there were attempts to
17:58
Speaker 2: swim against the tie, such as The Female's Friend eighteen
18:02
Speaker 2: forty six, which was one of the first periodicals to
18:05
Speaker 2: espouse women's rights, but they seldom lasted long. Right, that
18:09
Speaker 2: lasted less than a year.
18:13
Speaker 1: But what did come around soon after was the birth
18:16
Speaker 1: of the homemaker based and practical advice magazine for women.
18:20
Speaker 1: And one of the earlier providers for this type of
18:22
Speaker 1: magazine was the Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine, started by Samuel Beaton
18:27
Speaker 1: with the help from his wife, Isabella Mary Beaton. You
18:30
Speaker 1: can listen to a Savor episode that I did on
18:33
Speaker 1: my other podcast all about that, and her contributions would
18:37
Speaker 1: later be published in her widely acclaimed book of Household Management,
18:40
Speaker 1: which was a collection of Isabella's work, And here's a
18:43
Speaker 1: quote about that from that Britannical article. It was also
18:46
Speaker 1: the first women's periodical to concentrate on home management and
18:49
Speaker 1: offer practical advice to women, rather than provide entertainment for
18:53
Speaker 1: the idol.
18:54
Speaker 2: For the idol, how dare you? I guess it does
18:57
Speaker 2: stretch differently and so a little more detail from the
19:01
Speaker 2: National Portrait Gallery, says The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine London, published
19:06
Speaker 2: by Samuel Orchard Beaton, began as the first cheap monthly
19:09
Speaker 2: magazine for young middle class women, with a strong emphasis
19:13
Speaker 2: on practical instructions and useful knowledge such as dressmaking, but
19:17
Speaker 2: only occasional black and white engravings of French fashions. Domestic
19:21
Speaker 2: management material was written by his wife Isabella Beaton and
19:24
Speaker 2: collected as her Book of Household Management in eighteen sixty one.
19:28
Speaker 2: In eighteen sixty the price increased and more space was
19:31
Speaker 2: given to fashion and fiction, with colored fashion plates and
19:35
Speaker 2: large folds out embroidery patterns and less too instructional material,
19:39
Speaker 2: as it was directed to a wealthier and more fashionable readership.
19:43
Speaker 2: Between eighteen sixty two and eighteen sixty four, both shilling
19:47
Speaker 2: and six penny editions were issued, the first with the
19:50
Speaker 2: fashion and fiction supplement, but from January eighteen sixty five,
19:54
Speaker 2: the supplement was absorbed into the magazine. The provision fashion
19:57
Speaker 2: plates and imported were by Jules David, first issued in
20:02
Speaker 2: La Monteur de la Mode. Yeah no, I did that wrong,
20:04
Speaker 2: but we're gonna go on. One was included every month,
20:08
Speaker 2: and then when the magazine marched with a Milliner, Dressmaker
20:10
Speaker 2: and Wirehouseman's Gazette in eighteen seventy seven, it continued to
20:14
Speaker 2: issue David's Place until it ceased publication in eighteen eighty one.
20:18
Speaker 1: There were and are many of these types of magazines
20:20
Speaker 1: in the US. They are still with us today. Some
20:23
Speaker 1: of the first magazines include Harper's Bizarre, which was started
20:25
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty seven, in The Goodies Ladies Book, which
20:29
Speaker 1: started in eighteen thirty and The Goodies Lady's Book actually
20:33
Speaker 1: had one hundred and fifty women employed to hand tent
20:36
Speaker 1: fashion plates previous episodes we've mentioned then before, and in
20:40
Speaker 1: this group of magazines also we can include The Ladies
20:44
Speaker 1: Home Journal, and here's some information about that from Wikipedia.
20:50
Speaker 1: It was first published on February sixteenth, eighteen eighty three.
20:53
Speaker 1: It eventually became one of the leading women's magazines of
20:55
Speaker 1: the twentieth century in the United States in eighteen ninety one.
20:59
Speaker 1: It was published in philedd by the Curtis Publishing Company
21:02
Speaker 1: in nineteen oh three. It was the first American magazine
21:05
Speaker 1: to reach one million subscribers and the Britannica article rights.
21:09
Speaker 1: The field of women's magazines was finally transformed, however, by
21:13
Speaker 1: Cyrus Curtis with his Lady's Home Journal, founded eighteen eighty three,
21:17
Speaker 1: edited by his wife Louisa Nap Curtis, this soon reached
21:20
Speaker 1: the circulation of four hundred thousand, and under the editorship
21:24
Speaker 1: of Edward W. Boch from eighteen eighty nine, broke with Cinea,
21:28
Speaker 1: mentality and piety to become a stimulating journal of real
21:32
Speaker 1: service to women.
21:33
Speaker 2: So the history of this magazine is pretty fascinating. We
21:37
Speaker 2: have stories of editors men writing op eds to oppose
21:42
Speaker 2: the women's suffraget movement, saying things like quote a vision
21:46
Speaker 2: of the women at home living the simple life and
21:49
Speaker 2: having many more saying that women are enemies to themselves,
21:53
Speaker 2: so like, oh, that's nice. And then women's employees. I
21:57
Speaker 2: believe this was in the nineteen seventies. We're having sit
21:59
Speaker 2: in to demand a woman editor and by the way,
22:04
Speaker 2: it didn't work. But they did get their own section,
22:08
Speaker 2: which according to Wikipedia as quote, they wanted the magazine
22:11
Speaker 2: to recognize a wider variety of choices for women's lives,
22:15
Speaker 2: as well as give greater attention to women's issues such
22:17
Speaker 2: as sexual discrimination and abortion. Other activists continued to protest
22:21
Speaker 2: and seem to have achieved some success. They may not
22:25
Speaker 2: have liberated the Ladies Home Journal, but they did help
22:28
Speaker 2: change perception of how the media could portray women's lives,
22:31
Speaker 2: according to one source, and it is something to note
22:33
Speaker 2: that the first editor of this magazine was a woman,
22:37
Speaker 2: the wife Luisa Nap Curtis, but she was there for
22:40
Speaker 2: less than a year and it was then taken over
22:43
Speaker 2: by the dude who really did not like the women's
22:45
Speaker 2: suffrage movement.
22:48
Speaker 1: With the growth of women's magazines, there was what was
22:51
Speaker 1: called the Seven Sisters, which was the group of women's
22:54
Speaker 1: magazines that targeted women with husbands and children and were
22:57
Speaker 1: to assist homemakers at the time. Within this list that
23:02
Speaker 1: we can include the original Ladies Home Journal magazine, but
23:05
Speaker 1: also Family Circle, McCall's Red Book, and three that are
23:10
Speaker 1: still circulating today, Better Homes and Gardens, Women's Day and
23:13
Speaker 1: Good Housekeeping, which yes speaking of Good Housekeeping. The magazine
23:18
Speaker 1: actually started in eighteen eighty five, just more than a
23:21
Speaker 1: century ago. Here's a little bit about the magazine from
23:25
Speaker 1: an article from my lifetime dot com. On May second,
23:28
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty five, the first issue of Good Housekeeping magazine
23:32
Speaker 1: was published, founded by Clark W. Bryan in Holyoake, Massachusetts.
23:36
Speaker 1: The stated mission of the magazine was to produce and
23:39
Speaker 1: perpetuate perfection, or as near onto perfection as may be
23:42
Speaker 1: attained in the household.
23:45
Speaker 2: Right and the article continues since early on, Good Housekeeping
23:49
Speaker 2: took his mission of producing and perpetuating perfection and the
23:52
Speaker 2: household seriously. In the late nineteenth century, the magazine published
23:56
Speaker 2: groundbreaking articles about food safety and advocating for consumer PTI.
24:01
Speaker 2: As early as eighteen eighty seven, Good Housekeeping reported on
24:04
Speaker 2: topics ranging from watered down milk to candy contamination with asbestos.
24:09
Speaker 2: And yes, they actually still have the Good Housekeeping Institute today,
24:13
Speaker 2: so this thing exists. Here's a bit of information from
24:15
Speaker 2: Good Housekeeping themselves. Quote. Founded in nineteen hundred, the Good
24:19
Speaker 2: Housekeeping Institute was at first called the Good Housekeeping Experiment Station.
24:24
Speaker 2: The invention of electricity had introduced many new labor saving
24:27
Speaker 2: home impliances, but few consumers had any real knowledge of
24:30
Speaker 2: their operation and maintenance. With the goal of studying quote
24:34
Speaker 2: the problems basing the homemaker and to develop up to
24:36
Speaker 2: date firsthand information on solving them, the staff at the
24:40
Speaker 2: gh Experiment Station tested products in housekeeping methods and published
24:45
Speaker 2: articles about their discoveries and observations. They also reprinted advice
24:49
Speaker 2: from readers who wrote them. One reader offered a cure
24:51
Speaker 2: for calluses she used olive oil and cotton. Another reader
24:55
Speaker 2: advised about how to launder lay strapes, and another gave
24:58
Speaker 2: tips about the way to clean a meat chopper. Yeah.
25:05
Speaker 1: I would also offer this reminder, this is before the
25:07
Speaker 1: time of the internet, and if you listen to our
25:09
Speaker 1: episode of like Betty Crocker, this was really important. Like
25:12
Speaker 1: if you were lonely in the kitchen you didn't want
25:15
Speaker 1: to do you would read something like this and be like, oh, okay, yeah,
25:18
Speaker 1: and you felt us alone and you had these instructions,
25:21
Speaker 1: like you couldn't just go on the line and be.
25:22
Speaker 2: Like YouTube has saved many of us from some digestions.
25:26
Speaker 1: Exactly, yes, okay, but beyond just observing. At one point
25:32
Speaker 1: in the early nineteen hundreds, Good Housekeeping made some huge
25:35
Speaker 1: controversies through their institute as the institute was getting bigger
25:39
Speaker 1: and their reputation was rising with the promise of testing
25:42
Speaker 1: and giving skials of approvals for different foods and products
25:45
Speaker 1: that bled into advertisements that the FTC would claim were
25:49
Speaker 1: exaggerated and false and that the magazine was making quote,
25:53
Speaker 1: misleading and deceptive guarantees. And this would lead to a
25:56
Speaker 1: lawsuit that would take two years to get through and
25:59
Speaker 1: even had competitors from the Seven Sister Group testifying against
26:04
Speaker 1: the magazine. The magazine did drop tested and approved from
26:08
Speaker 1: their seal, but it didn't really stop their growing popularity.
26:11
Speaker 1: And also this continues to be a point of contention.
26:14
Speaker 1: And again you can see the same episode we did.
26:17
Speaker 2: About we should, we should, we should?
26:22
Speaker 1: What company did that? They did the diabetes good for
26:26
Speaker 1: your heart health and it changed the way we advertise cheerios.
26:31
Speaker 1: I think it is, but it's got to be their
26:34
Speaker 1: parent company. But yes, yes, whatever it was, that was like, right, yeah,
26:40
Speaker 1: it's something. Yeah anyway, Yes, here is another quote from
26:45
Speaker 1: Good Housekeeping, concerned about adulteration and misbranding. Home economist on
26:50
Speaker 1: staff also tested foods for purity and published starting in
26:54
Speaker 1: nineteen oh five, a roll of honor for pure food
26:57
Speaker 1: products each month. All this testing at what was now
27:01
Speaker 1: called the Good Housekeeping Institute resulted in December nineteen oh
27:04
Speaker 1: nine with the beginning of the Tested and Approved list
27:08
Speaker 1: of all household products that were found to meet the
27:10
Speaker 1: Institute's standards of excellence. Good Housekeeping seal became so well
27:15
Speaker 1: known that it has become part of the lexicon, with celebrities, governments, manufacturers,
27:19
Speaker 1: basically everyone using it. And yeah, as you can see,
27:24
Speaker 1: they did not include the tidbit about the lawsuit here right.
27:29
Speaker 2: Found that interesting. I was like, hu, they still set
27:31
Speaker 2: the seal and you know what, they do some big
27:37
Speaker 2: claims here. And here's what's happening with the Institute today,
27:40
Speaker 2: according to their site quote today. The Good Housekeeping Institute
27:44
Speaker 2: is located in the Hearst Tower in New York City
27:47
Speaker 2: and staffed by chemists, biologists, nutritionists, engineers, home economists, and
27:51
Speaker 2: culinary experts who evaluate thousands of consumer products each year,
27:56
Speaker 2: from microwave and mascaras to vacuums and towels. These reviews
28:00
Speaker 2: are highlighted in the magazine and online when products are
28:04
Speaker 2: evaluated for the Good Housekeeping Seal and the Green Good
28:08
Speaker 2: Housekeeping Seal, which both represent Good Housekeeping's two year limited
28:12
Speaker 2: warranty promising a replacement or a refund up to two
28:15
Speaker 2: thousand dollars if a seal product becomes defective within two
28:19
Speaker 2: years of purchase. Certain exclusions apply. Promotional materials for the
28:24
Speaker 2: product are also reviewed. So fay consumer like I like it,
28:30
Speaker 2: I don't like it. I actually just need to go
28:31
Speaker 2: back on a look and see if I've bought any
28:33
Speaker 2: of those things even though I wasn't based on there. Well,
28:36
Speaker 2: I can't. I can't say that out loud again. Then
28:38
Speaker 2: I won't get a refund.
28:41
Speaker 1: Oh no, well, we can't have that. And unsurprisingly, it
28:47
Speaker 1: took a while for the magazine industry to change its structory,
28:50
Speaker 1: and it didn't have any women editors until nineteen ninety four.
28:54
Speaker 1: The first six editors out of nine were all men,
28:57
Speaker 1: though since the first in nineteen ninety four, the rest
29:00
Speaker 1: of the editors have been women. So before we move
29:03
Speaker 1: on to localized magazines, we did want to note some
29:06
Speaker 1: of the past advice from this magazine and given credit
29:10
Speaker 1: where credit is due. The magazine recognized their own x
29:13
Speaker 1: and published an article titled The Good wife's guide to
29:16
Speaker 1: helping her husband succeed at work. The article begins with
29:19
Speaker 1: a disclaimer, saying, in our one hundred and thirty years
29:22
Speaker 1: of publishing, we featured all kinds of tips, recipes, and
29:25
Speaker 1: personal stories. Some smart advice still stands the test of time, others, well,
29:30
Speaker 1: not so much. Presented here with no further comment is
29:34
Speaker 1: a feature from the January nineteen fifty sixth issue of
29:36
Speaker 1: Good Healthkeeping. The basic premise a hiring manager offers his
29:41
Speaker 1: tips to a wife for helping her husband succeed at work. Enjoy.
29:46
Speaker 2: Okay, this is also what we would be like, Yeah,
29:48
Speaker 2: this is going to make you a little angry, but
29:49
Speaker 2: also maybe make you laugh because they're like, what the hell.
29:53
Speaker 2: So here's some excerpts from that article. We employers realize
29:58
Speaker 2: how often the wrong wife can break the right man.
30:02
Speaker 2: This doesn't mean that the wife is necessarily wrong for
30:05
Speaker 2: that man, but that she is wrong for the job.
30:08
Speaker 2: On the other hand, more often than is realized, the
30:12
Speaker 2: wife is a chief factor in the husband's success in
30:15
Speaker 2: his career. In the first place, she has a very
30:19
Speaker 2: definite effect on a man's spirit. And then the article continues,
30:25
Speaker 2: if a man has a peevish nagging wife. If she
30:29
Speaker 2: is jealous and possessive. If she is lazy or over
30:32
Speaker 2: ambitious or extravagant, that man is going to be unhappy,
30:37
Speaker 2: and his unhappiness will interfere with his concentration on his job.
30:42
Speaker 2: In the case of an important executive, this lack of
30:45
Speaker 2: concentration can affect the outcome of a business conference. It
30:49
Speaker 2: may even kill a profitable deal.
30:53
Speaker 1: Oh dear, wow, So here is some advice that they
30:58
Speaker 1: listed off. Good wife is friendly. A good wife's primary
31:02
Speaker 1: interest is her husband, her home, and her children. And
31:06
Speaker 1: here are some specifics to that. A good wife is
31:09
Speaker 1: there when her husband needs her. She must be his
31:11
Speaker 1: sounding board. She must be able to listen patiently without
31:14
Speaker 1: giving advice. She must have the knack of commenting without interfering.
31:20
Speaker 1: Sometimes it may be necessary for her to make sacrifices
31:23
Speaker 1: for the sake of her husband and his business career.
31:26
Speaker 1: She cannot be free to do this if she is
31:28
Speaker 1: dedicated to a career of her own.
31:31
Speaker 2: Ew Ay, yeah, don't have your own. This is why
31:35
Speaker 2: you're single. Right. Oh, And then they go on and
31:42
Speaker 2: add the bad wife things and so it includes being
31:47
Speaker 2: a complaining woman, a dominating woman, and the wife and
31:50
Speaker 2: a rut. And y'all, we have to talk about this
31:55
Speaker 2: wife in a rut and you might be like, well,
31:57
Speaker 2: what is that? Well they are quote pathetic little creatures.
32:02
Speaker 2: Is just out of her element. She is self conscious, nervous,
32:06
Speaker 2: and awkward. Her taste in clothes is usually pretty bad.
32:11
Speaker 2: Her conversation centers on babies and how to wash the
32:14
Speaker 2: kitchen floor. Ten or fifteen years ago, she may have
32:17
Speaker 2: been the pretty little girl on Maple Street. Her husband
32:20
Speaker 2: has become a man of the world, but she is
32:23
Speaker 2: still on Maple Street. Oh no, at least it's not
32:28
Speaker 2: Elm Street. A y'all. I mean again, kudos to Good
32:34
Speaker 2: Housekeeping for understanding how bad this was and also being
32:37
Speaker 2: able to call themselves out on it. So pass off
32:40
Speaker 2: to them.
32:41
Speaker 1: But Dale, I feel like I connect with this wife.
32:46
Speaker 2: In a rut. I'm like, wait, if all her life
32:50
Speaker 2: so she's supposed to be at being the perfect mom,
32:53
Speaker 2: what else is she going to talk about but the
32:56
Speaker 2: child and how to clean the floors? Right? I am
33:00
Speaker 2: not necessarily a wife of anything, but I sometimes talk
33:04
Speaker 2: about how to clean the floors, not the part.
33:07
Speaker 1: My clothes are bad, it's cold, I don't care.
33:11
Speaker 2: I am definitely awkward. So how dare you, sir?
33:13
Speaker 1: Exactly?
33:16
Speaker 2: Yes, it's such solid advice from the nineteen fifties, but
33:32
Speaker 2: you know, we don't know this Good Housekeeping wasn't the
33:35
Speaker 2: only ones perpetuating this type of idea, and even more so,
33:40
Speaker 2: there are magazines that were published more locally, like the
33:43
Speaker 2: one that we were talking about earlier, Southern Living, and
33:47
Speaker 2: we did want to kind of talk about what they
33:49
Speaker 2: have done, what they represent, a little bit of the
33:52
Speaker 2: good and the bad I think in it. Eventually, I
33:55
Speaker 2: think we wouldn't talk about the recipes from this, but
33:57
Speaker 2: we'll come back to that. If you've ever again we
34:00
Speaker 2: told you earlier, if you traveled through the South, and
34:02
Speaker 2: I'm not talking about I'm not talking about Florida, but
34:06
Speaker 2: probably Florida, but more Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee.
34:12
Speaker 2: In those areas and beyond southeast area, you have seen
34:16
Speaker 2: this magazine, the glossy picture of an idealistic UH decorated
34:21
Speaker 2: to the tea home. It's like Martha Stewart is the
34:24
Speaker 2: designer of this place, UH. And it's all over the covers,
34:27
Speaker 2: just crisp and clean, and inside are articles on how
34:30
Speaker 2: tos and the best recipes, and they even had floor plans,
34:35
Speaker 2: Like they had some amazing floor plans, to the point
34:38
Speaker 2: that it kind of uh started trends all over the
34:41
Speaker 2: South on what kind of homes were being built and
34:44
Speaker 2: when it comes to the holidays, unmatched, y'all. Like I
34:48
Speaker 2: can think of what like one magazine with this tree
34:51
Speaker 2: that had a very like Southern feel, Like I think
34:54
Speaker 2: it's a Country Christmas is what it was called. Of course,
34:58
Speaker 2: there's also a Country Living now that I think about it, magazine.
35:01
Speaker 2: I forgot about that one till just now and then
35:05
Speaker 2: saying I'm not gonna talk about it. But it's quite
35:09
Speaker 2: interesting these magazines, and they're very well printed and very
35:12
Speaker 2: pretty prettily put together. And again I believe many of
35:17
Speaker 2: the older boomer generations of women were haunted by the
35:21
Speaker 2: need to follow suit of these uh perfectly decorated trees
35:25
Speaker 2: and such. Again, my mom had full on themed Christmas trees.
35:30
Speaker 2: I think one was like French country. One was like
35:35
Speaker 2: an old traditional that's what she would call it. So
35:38
Speaker 2: we would have our our old school children's ornaments that
35:41
Speaker 2: we loved on an one tree. So it's like she
35:43
Speaker 2: had to distinguish the two and they were trying to
35:46
Speaker 2: be the ultimate decorators of their pristine, very pretty Southern homes.
35:53
Speaker 2: And again we've talked about how our mothers will go
35:56
Speaker 2: all out for every season of the year two decor rate. Again,
36:01
Speaker 2: my mom has like apple themed rates that go for
36:04
Speaker 2: the fall, Easter themed reads that go for spring. Like
36:09
Speaker 2: it's the thing. And it goes from the front of
36:14
Speaker 2: the house, I mean from the minute you walk up
36:16
Speaker 2: to the porch again, the wreaths, to the guest rooms,
36:18
Speaker 2: to the living rooms, to the bathrooms. It's all they are.
36:21
Speaker 2: And it's a part to these magazines right well.
36:26
Speaker 1: This publication originally came out in nineteen sixty six was
36:31
Speaker 1: published by the Progressive Farmer Company, which was the publisher
36:34
Speaker 1: of the Progressive Farmer magazine, and this lifestyle magazine is
36:38
Speaker 1: still one of the most subscribed to magazines. Here's a
36:41
Speaker 1: bit about them from their own site. It was from
36:45
Speaker 1: it was Foreign article celebrating their fiftieth anniversary in twenty sixteen.
36:49
Speaker 1: Southern Living is descended from the Progressive Farmer magazine, which
36:52
Speaker 1: has roots in Raleigh and dates back to eighteen eighty six.
36:56
Speaker 1: Southern Living was spun out of that magazine's lifestyle and
36:59
Speaker 1: home life section, which was popular among suburban housewives. The
37:04
Speaker 1: magazine has two point eight million subscribers, with about fourteen
37:07
Speaker 1: thousand who have been subscribers for five decades.
37:11
Speaker 2: Wow.
37:11
Speaker 1: A large proponent of the magazine was the many different
37:15
Speaker 1: recipes featured in the magazine. In fact, they started an
37:18
Speaker 1: annual recipe book in nineteen seventy nine and have been
37:21
Speaker 1: publishing them ever since. Here's what they say on their website.
37:25
Speaker 1: The nineteen seventy nine edition of Southern Living Annual Recipes,
37:29
Speaker 1: which has sold well over twenty one million copies since
37:31
Speaker 1: its first printing, was just the beginning. The popularity and
37:36
Speaker 1: reliability of Southern Living Recipes, coupled with the steady flow
37:39
Speaker 1: of comments, questions, and suggestions from readers, led to a
37:42
Speaker 1: highly successful extension for the brand. This annual cookbook has
37:47
Speaker 1: been published every year since.
37:49
Speaker 2: I want to say, my mother would cut out these recipes. Yeah,
37:53
Speaker 2: and I think I have what I call like the
37:58
Speaker 2: Hillbilly taco salad, which you've had before.
38:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's good.
38:04
Speaker 2: Like it's very odd that I think she got from there,
38:07
Speaker 2: And I think it was in sponsorship with Rice Erni,
38:10
Speaker 2: which is what I use in this, y'all.
38:13
Speaker 1: Yes, so many recipes were like companies being like here's
38:17
Speaker 1: where you need bananas, and there's a whole book of
38:20
Speaker 1: banana respees. But my mom has that two she has
38:22
Speaker 1: the recipe backs. It just has like these cutouts and
38:24
Speaker 1: you're like all folded. You can't read all of it,
38:28
Speaker 1: you know, she got from magazine.
38:30
Speaker 2: I think. I try to do a homemade cake with
38:32
Speaker 2: fudge icing for my mother for that. The cake did
38:35
Speaker 2: not turn out so well. The icing was delicious though, well,
38:40
Speaker 2: but you know, with the things that were happening, and
38:42
Speaker 2: this is what the pill is, and many of the
38:43
Speaker 2: women have fall suit and still again still subscribe man
38:46
Speaker 2: five decades worth for thousands of people for this magazine.
38:50
Speaker 2: And I guarantee my mom has been probably a part
38:53
Speaker 2: of that because, like I said, I had it as
38:55
Speaker 2: a child, and I'm around, you know, forty now, forties,
38:58
Speaker 2: in my forties now, so knowing that she's had it
39:01
Speaker 2: for that long. But the book has a lot of
39:04
Speaker 2: criticism as well, including the glaring fact that the magazine
39:08
Speaker 2: was based out of the South and at the time
39:11
Speaker 2: ignored the racism and racial violence that was happening in
39:15
Speaker 2: that time period. And in that area. Some of the
39:18
Speaker 2: articles point out the fact that this magazine existed during
39:22
Speaker 2: one of the most heated times of the Civil rights
39:24
Speaker 2: movement and ignored the issues around them, and that it
39:27
Speaker 2: was proof enough that this magazine and a lot of
39:28
Speaker 2: magazines like it whitewashed and overall completely refused to acknowledge
39:33
Speaker 2: the issues that were happening. A specific researcher, and I
39:36
Speaker 2: believe she was a student at the time, Summer Hill
39:38
Speaker 2: Vincent wrote about this for her dissertation titled Whitewashing Southern
39:42
Speaker 2: Living The socio Cultural Significance of the nineteen sixty six
39:46
Speaker 2: magazine Launch in Birmingham, Alabama, and in her paper she
39:50
Speaker 2: writes about the issues of how a still popular magazine
39:54
Speaker 2: hasn't really been studied when it comes to their place
39:56
Speaker 2: in history during the Civil Rights movement. Quote from that
40:01
Speaker 2: Historian James Cobb explained that the whitewashing of history in
40:04
Speaker 2: Southern Living occurred in the aftermath of the Civil Rights
40:07
Speaker 2: Movement when white Southerners scrambled to find an identity that
40:10
Speaker 2: was unique but unrelated to racism. Quote For many of them,
40:15
Speaker 2: that search seemed to begin at the very end of
40:17
Speaker 2: the Civil Rights era with the cleverly pleasing pages of
40:20
Speaker 2: Southern Living magazine. He argued that it was no accident
40:24
Speaker 2: that a magazine for white Southerners launched in the later
40:27
Speaker 2: years of the Civil rights movement and goes on that
40:30
Speaker 2: mirage hid so much pain. As American Studies professor Alan
40:35
Speaker 2: Tulos explained in the nineteen seventy nine article Azelia Death Trip,
40:39
Speaker 2: not only are the historical rich folk ways given an
40:42
Speaker 2: eye catching or sentimental treatment which ultimately trivializes them, but
40:46
Speaker 2: sanction is given to a way of looking at life
40:49
Speaker 2: which eliminates its unpleasant, tragic realities, its historical burdens, and
40:54
Speaker 2: its future obligations. By looking the other way, the magazine
40:58
Speaker 2: endorsed a lifestyle that romance size reality and let white
41:01
Speaker 2: Southerners off the hook for their role in the events
41:04
Speaker 2: taking place around them. Of course, this is just a
41:07
Speaker 2: small snippet from that article, from that dissertation, and I
41:12
Speaker 2: think it's a lot in conversation because there's also a
41:15
Speaker 2: lot of identity put into magazines like this, and why
41:19
Speaker 2: mediums like this was so important, and that when we
41:22
Speaker 2: come back and talk about magazines effects today, we will
41:25
Speaker 2: talk about the fashion industry and even the political ideas
41:30
Speaker 2: behind it. But things like this have a huge cultural impact.
41:34
Speaker 2: And again, as Annie was saying previously, this was before
41:37
Speaker 2: the internet. This is how news traveled and or what
41:40
Speaker 2: you thought other people were doing as well. They might
41:44
Speaker 2: not be you, but they're out there because you see
41:46
Speaker 2: this in this glossy, beautiful magazine saying that you should
41:48
Speaker 2: be making these recipes and ignoring everything else. There's even
41:52
Speaker 2: articles talking about how they ignored and didn't have many
41:56
Speaker 2: black community members as featured in any of the articles,
41:59
Speaker 2: featured in any of the celebrations, or any of the
42:01
Speaker 2: conversations in this magazine which was supposed to celebrate all
42:05
Speaker 2: of the South at that time. There was a recent
42:09
Speaker 2: article about how there needs to be a reckoning for
42:12
Speaker 2: Southern living. And I say recent, I mean in the
42:14
Speaker 2: last ten years, because they were still featuring things like
42:17
Speaker 2: plantations and showing tours about plantations, and how they ignored
42:21
Speaker 2: the history behind it just to show pretty pictures of
42:24
Speaker 2: that property and making money off of that property and
42:27
Speaker 2: again not acknowledging what had happened there, what was going
42:31
Speaker 2: on there. I think at one point in the article
42:34
Speaker 2: that they did talk about the fact that one of
42:35
Speaker 2: the editors were like, no, no, no, we featured black people.
42:38
Speaker 2: Look and it was like a handful, possibly a few times.
42:43
Speaker 2: And there's a lot to say in that conversation. There
42:45
Speaker 2: was also an article which Annie I told you about previously,
42:49
Speaker 2: and I cannot not share. I'm not going to read
42:51
Speaker 2: it read it necessarily, but I found it really really
42:54
Speaker 2: funny because there's a man complaining about how the Southern
43:00
Speaker 2: Living has lost this way, and I was like, wait,
43:03
Speaker 2: what's happening? And his complaint was the fact that it's
43:07
Speaker 2: no longer featured recipes, it no longer featured like helpful
43:10
Speaker 2: guys or how tos. Instead it was now trying to
43:13
Speaker 2: sell you things, or it was trying to tell you
43:16
Speaker 2: how to be a better woman this way like sex life,
43:18
Speaker 2: but how to have a better sex life and all
43:20
Speaker 2: these things. And though he had a point, I don't
43:24
Speaker 2: know if I want to take this room of sixty
43:26
Speaker 2: year old white man, balding white man not just saying
43:30
Speaker 2: he's not wrong. Yeah, but I don't feel like this
43:33
Speaker 2: is his place to say. I get, I mean, anyone
43:35
Speaker 2: can enjoy any of those things, but it's that to
43:39
Speaker 2: be like you are teaching women better things. Go back
43:42
Speaker 2: to that.
43:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it is strange, and I think one of
43:50
Speaker 1: the things when we come back whenever that will be
43:54
Speaker 1: probably February with the next part. We've talked about before
43:58
Speaker 1: on this show. I think past host Kristen Caroline definitely
44:01
Speaker 1: talked about it. But you know that with the Internet,
44:04
Speaker 1: the magazine industry has been in flux. There has been
44:08
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure of how how they're going to survive.
44:12
Speaker 1: I personally feel like magazines are sexual luxury, Like I
44:14
Speaker 1: usually only get them if theyre's like Star Wars on
44:16
Speaker 1: the cover or I don't do this, but my friends
44:20
Speaker 1: when we go to like the beach or something, we'll
44:22
Speaker 1: get magazines. But otherwise, so it's sort of an interesting
44:27
Speaker 1: space there. And but there are we also you should
44:29
Speaker 1: go listen to our old fanzine episode because there are
44:33
Speaker 1: places where it's like really niche and it's growing. So
44:36
Speaker 1: it's not that it's gone away. It's definitely a huge
44:40
Speaker 1: place for advertising, I will say, right, but it's a
44:45
Speaker 1: lot of these big magazines that have been around for
44:48
Speaker 1: so long are kind of questioning like, well, what are
44:53
Speaker 1: we now? How do we keep going?
44:54
Speaker 2: What is oh? We had like there's and we're going
44:57
Speaker 2: to talk about this for sure with me, come for
45:00
Speaker 2: a it's not part two. I'm refusing to call it
45:02
Speaker 2: a part two for the other episode that we were
45:06
Speaker 2: going to do that somewhat related to this about the
45:09
Speaker 2: whole virtual magazines or how it is no longer impressed
45:13
Speaker 2: necessarily and is now all online and what does that
45:16
Speaker 2: look like? And then also talking about paywalls and is
45:19
Speaker 2: that a good thing? But how do you know how
45:20
Speaker 2: do they make money advertising? I know, but this is
45:23
Speaker 2: back and forth, And why do I find it irritating
45:26
Speaker 2: to pay for a subscription when I would have been
45:29
Speaker 2: willing to buy a magazine that's my own right here?
45:33
Speaker 2: But again, who is who is affected? Who isn't affected
45:36
Speaker 2: by this? Who is being targeted? Who is being marketed to?
45:40
Speaker 2: But also how is it still making changes in society?
45:43
Speaker 2: Because again, a local regional magazine that like Southern Living
45:49
Speaker 2: has impacted society pretty deeply. And the same thing with
45:55
Speaker 2: all the other magazines we talked about, like as they
45:57
Speaker 2: have thank god, transformed or hopefully are transforming into being
46:03
Speaker 2: better messages for women, uh and more inclusive, I would hope,
46:09
Speaker 2: and less heteronormative. But you know, like what kind of
46:14
Speaker 2: impact they had on so many young women, older women,
46:18
Speaker 2: so many of the things of expectations that it held
46:21
Speaker 2: and yeah, and what we bought because of it. Like,
46:23
Speaker 2: at one point in time, TikTok did not exist, and
46:25
Speaker 2: I was not influenced by TikTok. I was influenced by
46:27
Speaker 2: magazines telling me I needed to go get this.
46:30
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm yeah, And a lot of those recipes would
46:33
Speaker 1: be like, Hey, you want to make this aspect, guess
46:35
Speaker 1: what You're gonna need this gelatin mold right, here's where
46:39
Speaker 1: you can get it.
46:39
Speaker 2: Here's what here's this. Let me show you.
46:42
Speaker 1: Yes, you can send in your little mail in coupon.
46:46
Speaker 2: I also clip coupons out of magazines.
46:48
Speaker 1: Wow, yeah, what a world memories. Well, do watch out
46:57
Speaker 1: for our next follow up.
47:01
Speaker 2: I'll follow up Valentine's they follow up. That's what I
47:04
Speaker 2: feel like.
47:04
Speaker 1: It's gonna be a related follow up, and I will
47:06
Speaker 1: open the box on my right gostling shine and you're
47:09
Speaker 1: gonna laugh. It's very embarrassing. But in the meantime, listeners,
47:13
Speaker 1: if you have any thoughts about any of this, if
47:15
Speaker 1: you still have any magazines or memories about magazines fanzines,
47:19
Speaker 1: you can let us know. You can email us at
47:22
Speaker 1: Sephanie mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can find
47:24
Speaker 1: us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast, or on Instagram
47:26
Speaker 1: and TikTok at Stuff I've Never Told You. We have
47:28
Speaker 1: a tea public store, and we have a book that
47:30
Speaker 1: you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks as
47:32
Speaker 1: always to our super producer Christine, their executive producer Maya,
47:35
Speaker 1: and your contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks to you
47:37
Speaker 1: for listening Stuff I Never Told You inspection of iHeart Radio.
47:40
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can check
47:41
Speaker 1: out the art Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
47:43
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.