American women's magazine
Good Housekeeping
is an American and British lifestyle media brand that covers a wide range of topics from home decor and renovation, health, beauty and food, to entertainment, pets and gifts. The Good Housekeeping Institute which opened its "Experiment Station" in 1900, specializes in product reviews by a staff of scientific experts. The GH Institute is known, in part, for the "Good Housekeeping Seal", a limited warranty program that evaluates products to ensure they perform as intended.
[2]
Good Housekeeping
was founded in 1885 by American publisher and poet
Clark W. Bryan
. By the time of its acquisition by the
Hearst Corporation
in 1911, the magazine had grown to a circulation of 300,000 subscribers. By the early 1960s, it had over five million subscribers and was one of the world's most popular lifestyle magazines.
History and profile
[
edit
]
On May 2, 1885,
Clark W. Bryan
founded
Good Housekeeping
in
Holyoke, Massachusetts
, as a fortnightly magazine.
[3]
[4]
The magazine became a monthly publication in 1891.
[5]
The magazine achieved a circulation of 300,000 by 1911, at which time it was bought by the
Hearst Corporation
.
[6]
It topped one million in the mid-1920s, and continued to rise, even during the
Great Depression
and its aftermath. In 1938, a year in which the magazine advertising dropped 22 percent,
Good Housekeeping
showed an operating profit of $2,583,202, more than three times the profit of Hearst's other eight magazines combined,
[7]
and probably the most profitable monthly of its time. Circulation topped 2,500,000 in 1943, 3,500,000 in the mid-1950s, 5,000,000 in 1962, and 5,500,000 per month in 1966. 1959 profits were more than $11 million.
[8]
Good Housekeeping
was one of the "
Seven Sisters
", a group of women's service magazines,
[5]
and is one of the three of them still published in print.
[
citation needed
]
In 1922, the Hearst Corporation created a British edition along the same lines, named
British Good Housekeeping
.
[9]
Famous writers who have contributed to the magazine include
A. J. Cronin
,
[10]
[11]
Betty Friedan
,
[12]
Frances Parkinson Keyes
,
[13]
Clara Savage Littledale
,
[14]
Edwin Markham
,
[
citation needed
]
Somerset Maugham
,
[15]
[12]
Edna St. Vincent Millay
,
[15]
[12]
J. D. Salinger
,
[16]
Evelyn Waugh
,
[15]
and
Virginia Woolf
.
[15]
Other contributors include
advice columnists
,
chefs
, and
politicians
.
[12]
Good Housekeeping Institute
[
edit
]
In 1900, the "Experiment Station", the predecessor to the Good Housekeeping Research Institute (GHRI), now known as the Good Housekeeping Institute, was founded. In 1902, the magazine was calling this "An Inflexible Contract Between the Publisher and Each Subscriber". The formal opening of the headquarters of the GH Institute ? the "Model Kitchen", "Testing Station for Household Devices", and "Domestic Science Laboratory" ? occurred in January 1910.
[17]
In 1909, the magazine established the Good Housekeeping Seal. Products advertised in the magazine that bear the GH Seal are tested by GH Institute experts and are backed by a two-year limited warranty. About 5,000 products have been given the seal.
[18]
In April 1912, a year after Hearst bought the magazine,
Harvey W. Wiley
, the first commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (1907?1912), became head of the Good Housekeeping Research Institute and a contributing editor whose "Question Box" feature ran for decades.
[19]
Beginning with a "Beauty Clinic" in 1932, departments were added to the Institute, including a "Baby's Center", "Foods and Cookery", and a "Needlework Room". Some functioned as testing laboratories, while others were designed to produce editorial copy.
[
citation needed
]
In 1924, the British Good Housekeeping magazine set up its own Good Housekeeping Institute at 49 Wellington Street in Covent Garden, London. Its first director was
Dorothy Cottington Taylor
who ran the "a highly organised laboratory for testing and investigating every kind of household appliance, method, and recipe" for sixteen years.
[20]
[21]
After the passage of the
Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act
in 1938, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Rexford Tugwell sought to promote a government grading system. The Hearst Corporation opposed the policy in spirit, and began publishing a monthly tabloid attacking federal oversight. In 1939, the
Federal Trade Commission
filed a complaint against
Good Housekeeping
for "misleading and deceptive" guarantees including the Seal, and "exaggerated and false" claims in its advertisements. The publisher fought the proceedings for two years, during which time competing editors from the
Ladies Home Journal
and
McCall's
testified against
Good Housekeeping
. The FTC's ultimate ruling was against the magazine, forcing it to remove some claims and phraseology from its ad pages. The words "Tested and Approved" were dropped from the Seal. But the magazine's popularity was unaffected, steadily rising in circulation and profitability. In 1962, the wording of the Seal was changed to a guarantee of "Product or Performance", while dropping its endorsement of rhetorical promises made by the advertisers. In its varying forms, the Seal became inextricably associated with the magazine, and many others (e.g.,
McCall's
,
Parents Magazine
, and
Better Homes and Gardens
) mimicked the practice.
[
citation needed
]
International editions
[
edit
]
Good Housekeeping
began to be published in the United Kingdom in 1922.
[22]
William Randolph Hearst
appointed
Alice Maud Head
initially as assistant editor. Head rose to be the managing director, as well as purportedly being the highest paid woman in Europe. As Hearst's deputy, Head would make decisions on his behalf about not just editing, but also buying for him
St Donat's Castle
, expensive art objects, and three
giraffes
for his zoo. Head remained head until 1939.
[23]
In
Latin America
, a Spanish version of the magazine, titled
Buenhogar
, was published in the United States and Latin America by the
Televisa
corporation in Mexico from 1965, under license from the Hearst Corporation.
[24]
[25]
In Russia, the magazine was published first as
Domashny Ochag
("Good Home, or Hearth"), before changing its name to
Novy Ochag
("New Home, or Hearth") sometime in July 2022.
[26]
[27]
Published by Independent Media, and described as "a resource for women who take care of their homes, raise children, have successful careers and help others",
Novy Ochag
recorded a digital readership of 13 million in October 2023.
[28]
American editors
[
edit
]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"eCirc for Consumer Magazines"
.
Audit Bureau of Circulations
. June 30, 2020
. Retrieved
October 7,
2020
.
- ^
Ewoldt, John (October 4, 2018).
"Will anyone unfamiliar with the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval 'get' MOA's new store?"
.
Star Tribune
. Retrieved
August 2,
2020
.
- ^
Belkin, Lisa (June 15, 1985).
"Good Housekeeping's Seal Stamps Its Approval"
.
Milwaukee Journal
. Retrieved
June 18,
2010
.
[
permanent dead link
]
- ^
"Top 100 U.S. Magazines by Circulation"
(PDF)
.
PSA Research Center
. n.d. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on January 28, 2018
. Retrieved
February 6,
2016
.
- ^
a
b
"Good Housekeeping"
.
Encyclopedia.com
. July 23, 2020
. Retrieved
August 2,
2020
.
- ^
Ibrahim, Magda (February 12, 2015).
"Magazines ABCs: Women's monthlies led by Good Housekeeping"
.
MediaWeek
. Retrieved
April 24,
2016
.
- ^
Printers' Ink
, Vol. 186, March 16, 1939, pg. 16.
- ^
Mott, Frank Luther (1968).
A History of American Magazines
. Harvard University Press. pp. 140?143.
- ^
Hart, Carolyn (October 24, 2014).
"Good Housekeeping Institute: meet the team testing every item in your home"
.
Daily Telegraph
.
ISSN
0307-1235
. Retrieved
December 4,
2019
.
- ^
Nugent, Frank S. (March 9, 1940).
"THE SCREEN; 'Vigil in the Night,' a Sobersided Drama of Nursing, Opens at the Roxy--'Three Cheers for the Irish'
"
.
The New York Times
. Retrieved
December 2,
2021
.
VIGIL IN THE NIGHT, from the novel by A. J. Cronin published serially in Good Housekeeping Magazine...
- ^
Davies, Alan (January 1, 2018).
A.J. Cronin
. Alma Books. p. 150.
ISBN
978-0-7145-4541-7
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
"Good Housekeeping"
.
America's Mailing Industry
.
National Postal Museum
,
Smithsonian Institution
. Retrieved
August 2,
2020
.
- ^
Carr, Jane Greenway (April 7, 2016).
"Frances Parkinson Keyes (1885?1970)"
.
Encyclopedia Virginia
. Virginia Humanities
. Retrieved
August 2,
2020
.
- ^
"Mother of Two Children, She Helped Raise A Million More: Former Newspaper Woman Directs Staff of Experts Who Write Magazine on Child Rearing Read by Five Hundred Thousand Parents"
.
Lewiston Sun-Journal
. September 7, 1937. p. 15A
. Retrieved
August 2,
2020
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
"Good Housekeeping, 1910"
.
Modernist Journals Project
.
Brown University
and
University of Tulsa
. n.d
. Retrieved
August 2,
2020
.
- ^
Salinger, J. D. (February 1948). "A Girl I Knew".
Good Housekeeping
. Hearst Communications, Inc.
- ^
"The 100th Anniversary of the Good Housekeeping Research Institute"
.
Good Housekeeping
. Hearst Communications, Inc. Archived from
the original
on January 4, 2008
. Retrieved
January 12,
2008
.
- ^
Nicholls, Walter (January 2, 2008).
"Surviving the Test of Time: At Good Housekeeping, A Modern Makeover And Old-Fashioned Appeal"
.
Washington Post
.
- ^
"Dr. Wiley's Debut as Editor; He Says He Will Be a Watchdog for the Nation's Housekeepers"
.
The New York Times
. April 26, 1912. p. 9.
- ^
B, Lizzie (May 22, 2022).
"Dorothy Cottington Taylor (1891-1944)"
.
Women Who Meant Business
. Retrieved
November 6,
2023
.
- ^
"Dorothy Daisy Cottington-Taylor (nee Gale) - National Portrait Gallery"
.
www.npg.org.uk
. Retrieved
November 6,
2023
.
- ^
Ping Shaw (1999). "Internationalization of the women's magazine industry in Taiwan context, process and influence".
Asian Journal of Communication
.
9
(2): 17?38.
doi
:
10.1080/01292989909359623
.
- ^
Pugh, Martin
(2004).
"Head, Alice Maud (1886?1981)"
.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
. Oxford University Press.
doi
:
10.1093/ref:odnb/50062
. Retrieved
April 20,
2017
.
- ^
"Editorial Television, S.A. de C.V."
Encyclopedia.com
. March 3, 1997
. Retrieved
January 8,
2024
.
- ^
Levine, Felicia (December 16, 1996).
"Televisa launching four new magazines for U.S. Hispanics"
.
The Business Journals
. Retrieved
January 8,
2024
.
- ^
"Independent Media, медиахолдинг. Территория контента, креатива и технологий"
.
Independent Media
(in Russian). December 25, 2023
. Retrieved
January 8,
2024
.
- ^
"Domashny Ochag in June 2014"
.
Independent Media
(in Russian). May 2014
. Retrieved
January 6,
2024
.
- ^
"Novy Ochag Sets Another Record"
.
Independent Media
(in Russian). November 2023
. Retrieved
January 8,
2024
.
- ^
a
b
Steigrad, Alexandra (November 12, 2013).
"Good Housekeeping Names Jane Francisco; Longtime editor in chief Rosemary Ellis is leaving the publication to "pursue new opportunities"
"
.
Women's Wear Daily
. Retrieved
August 2,
2020
.
External links
[
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]
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1
Owned by Montclair Communications and operated by Hearst under an
LMA
.
2
Carries the network in a secondary status.
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