The Beginning

• A publisher and editor in Philadelphia, Cyrus Curtis created a weekly paper in 1883 called The Tribune and Farmer. He wanted to include a women's section and asked his wife to look it over. She didn't like it, and took on the column herself, using her maiden name, Louisa Knapp. By December of that year, the column went from a small section to a page and, finally, its own magazine.
  
  

Readership

• Mrs. Curtis's Ladies Home Journal cost five cents per copy or 50 cents for a year's subscription back then. By the time she retired as editor in 1889, the Journal's readership grew to over 440,000.
  
  

Hearth and Home

• Being a woman's magazine, the Journal provided articles on decorating one's home, recipes, fashion advice, tips on raising a family, sewing and financial advice. The columns "Can this Marriage be Saved" and "How America Lives" began in 1935 and are still a part of the magazine today.
  
  

New Talents

• The Ladies Home Journal also provided an outlet for up-and-coming talents. Rudyard Kipling had his first story published in the magazine in 1900. Other writers, such as A.A. Milne, Truman Capote, Ogden Nash, John Steinbeck and W.H. Auden also graced the pages of the Journal. Artists also made a name for themselves in the Journal. Kate Greenaway, Maxfield Parrish, Norman Rockwell and Arthur Rackham often illustrated for the magazine.
  
  

Influential People

• Writers weren't the only contributors. Presidents, such as Theodore Roosevelt, Grover Cleveland, Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon (as well as Senator Robert F. Kennedy) wrote essays in the magazine. Entertainers like Charles Chaplin, Candice Bergen, Robert Taylor and John Barrymore also wrote commentaries.