The Delineator was an American women's magazine of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, founded by the Butterick Publishing Company in 1869 under the name The Metropolitan Monthly. Its name was changed in 1875. The magazine was published on a monthly basis in New York City. [1] In November 1926, under the editorship of Mrs. William Brown Meloney, it absorbed The Designer, founded in 1887 and published by the Standard Fashion Company, a Butterick subsidiary. [2]
One of its managing editors was writer Theodore Dreiser, who worked with other members of the staff such as Sarah Field Splint (later known for writing cookbooks ) and Arthur Sullivant Hoffman. [3] The novelist and short story writer, Honoré Willsie Morrow served as editor, 1914–19. [4]
The Delineator featured the Butterick sewing patterns and provided an in-depth look at the fashion of the day. Butterick also produced quarterly catalogs of fashion patterns in the 1920s and early 1930s.[ citation needed ]
In addition to clothing patterns, the magazine published photos and drawings of embroidery and needlework that could be used to adorn both clothing and items for the home. It also included articles on all forms of home decor. It also published fiction, including many short stories by L. Frank Baum.[ citation needed ]
The magazine also published articles on social and political reform. Charles Dwyer, editor from 1894-1906, expanded the magazine's coverage to include editorials, fiction, and women's increasing involvement in public life. [5] His successor, Theodore Dreiser published articles addressing women's roles as consumers, and invited readers to write in about current social problems. [6]
In the late 1920s, it featured covers by noted fashion artist Helen Dryden. [7]
It ceased publication in 1937 when it was merged with The Pictorial Review . [8]
In May 1894 the magazine began a monthly series on "Women's Colleges" with a piece on Vassar. Published by graduates of those colleges, the series covered locations, academics, traditions and costs. After the first year, the series' focus shifted to women's experiences at co-ed schools, starting with Cornell University and expanding to other land-grant universities. [6]
From 1907-1911, the magazine published the Child-Rescue Campaign, in which readers could write to the magazine to adopt children whose photographs and stories were serialized in each issue. [9] Over two thousand institutionalized children of white working-class and/or European immigrant parents were placed in private homes during the campaign. [9] It eventually resulted in the 1909 White House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children, hosted by President Theodore Roosevelt. [6]
In 1921 the Better Homes in America campaign was launched by editor Marie Mattingly Maloney to celebrate home ownership, modernization, and beautification. In 1923 it became a national campaign, with support from President Calvin Coolidge and Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover.
A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combination of the three.
Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despite a lack of a firm moral code, and literary situations that more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of choice and agency. Dreiser's best known novels include Sister Carrie (1900) and An American Tragedy (1925).
The Lady's Magazine; or Entertaining Companion for the Fair Sex, Appropriated Solely to Their Use and Amusement, was an early British women's magazine published monthly from 1770 until 1847. Priced at sixpence per copy, it began publication in August 1770 by the London bookseller John Coote and the publisher John Wheble. It featured articles on fiction, poetry, fashion, music, and social gossip and was, according to the Victoria and Albert Museum, "the first woman's magazine to enjoy lasting success."
Harper's Weekly, A Journal of Civilization was an American political magazine based in New York City. Published by Harper & Brothers from 1857 until 1916, it featured foreign and domestic news, fiction, essays on many subjects, and humor, alongside illustrations. It carried extensive coverage of the American Civil War, including many illustrations of events from the war. During its most influential period, it was the forum of the political cartoonist Thomas Nast.
McCall's was a monthly American women's magazine, published by the McCall Corporation, that enjoyed great popularity through much of the 20th century, peaking at a readership of 8.4 million in the early 1960s. The publication was established as a small-format magazine called The Queen in 1873. In 1897 it was renamed McCall's Magazine—The Queen of Fashion and subsequently grew in size to become a large-format glossy. It was one of the "Seven Sisters" group of women's service magazines.
The American Spectator was a monthly literary magazine which made its first monthly appearance in November 1932. It was edited by George Jean Nathan, though Eugene O'Neill, Ernest Boyd, Theodore Dreiser, and James Branch Cabell were also listed as joint editors. The original editors left the publication in 1935, after which the paper continued monthly publication under new editors until October 1936. The American Spectator lasted another six months on a bimonthly before folding altogether.
Ebenezer Butterick was an American tailor, inventor, manufacturer, and fashion business executive, born in Sterling, Massachusetts.
The American Jewess (1895–1899) described itself as "the only magazine in the world devoted to the interests of Jewish women." It was the first English-language periodical targeted to American Jewish women, covering an evocative range of topics that ranged from women's place in the synagogue to whether women should ride bicycles. The magazine also served as the publicity arm for the newly founded National Council of Jewish Women. The American Jewess was a periodical “published in Chicago and New York between 1895 and 1899” and represented the ideas found among liberal American Jews at the time. It “was the first Jewish women's journal edited by women that were independent of any organizational or religious ties,” along with the “first English-language journal independently edited by women.” The magazine printed stories about politics, famous individuals, aesthetics, and new books. There was also a section for children. The magazine engrained its contents with Zionist views and feminist politics. There were 46 issues published throughout four and a half years, with a circulation totaling approximately 31,000.
Woman's Home Companion was an American monthly magazine, published from 1873 to 1957. It was highly successful, climbing to a circulation peak of more than four million during the 1930s and 1940s. The magazine, headquartered in Springfield, Ohio, was discontinued in 1957.
Ellen Louise Demorest was an American businesswoman, fashion arbiter and milliner, widely credited for inventing mass-produced tissue-paper dressmaking patterns. With her husband, William Jennings Demorest, she established a company to sell the patterns, which were adaptations of the latest French fashions, and a magazine to promote them in 1860. Her dressmaking patterns made French styles accessible to ordinary women, thus greatly influencing US fashion.
Ainslee's Magazine was an American literary periodical published from 1897 to December 1926. It was originally published as a humor magazine called The Yellow Kid, based on the popular comic strip character. It was renamed Ainslee's the following year.
Metropolitan was an American magazine, published monthly from 1895 to 1925 in New York City. Former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt was editor of the magazine during World War I when it focused on politics and literature. It was sometimes named, or called, Metropolitan Magazine or The Metropolitan, and its final issues were published as Macfadden's Fiction-Lover's Magazine.
Thelma Somerville Cudlipp was an American artist and book illustrator.
La Belle Assemblée was a British women's magazine published from 1806 to 1837, founded by John Bell (1745–1831).
The Pall Mall Magazine was a monthly British literary magazine published between 1893 and 1914. Begun by William Waldorf Astor as an offshoot of The Pall Mall Gazette, the magazine included poetry, short stories, serialized fiction, and general commentaries, along with extensive artwork. It was notable in its time as the first British magazine to "publish illustrations in number and finish comparable to those of American periodicals of the same class" much of which was in the late Pre-Raphaelite style. It was often compared to the competing publication The Strand Magazine; many artists, such as illustrator Sidney Paget and author H. G. Wells, sold freelance work to both.
The Butterick Publishing Company was founded by Ebenezer Butterick to distribute the first graded sewing patterns. By 1867, it had released its first magazine, Ladies Quarterly of Broadway Fashions, followed by The Metropolitan in 1868. These magazines contained patterns and fashion news.
A sewing pattern is the template from which the parts of a garment are traced onto woven or knitted fabrics before being cut out and assembled. Patterns are usually made of paper, and are sometimes made of sturdier materials like paperboard or cardboard if they need to be more robust to withstand repeated use. Before the mid-19th century, many women sewed their own clothing by hand. Factory-produced fabrics were affordable and available in the early 19th century, but easy-to-use dress patterns and sewing machines for the home seamstress were not sold in the United States until the 1850s.
Mabel Potter Daggett was an American writer, journalist, editor and suffragist. Daggett reported from France during World War I, wrote a biography of Queen Marie of Romania, and was active in the woman's movement in the US.
Honoré Willsie Morrow was an American novelist and short story writer, as well as a magazine editor. Traveling to every state of the Union with her first husband, she used these experiences as background for her writing. Morrow is remembered for what became known as The Great Captain trilogy centered upon Abraham Lincoln: Forever Free (1927), With Malice Toward None (1928), and The Last Full Measure (1930). For five years, she served as the editor of The Delineator.
Demorest's Illustrated Monthly was a publication in the United States. It was published by William Jennings Demorest. Jane Cunningham Croly served as its editor from 1860 to 1887. She helped it advocate for female education and employment. Other people who wrote for the paper included Louisa May Alcott and Julia Ward Howe. The paper was part of Demorest and his wife Ellen Louise Demorest's retail store, publishing, and dress pattern business empire.