SOURCE: “Edward William Bok: Editor of the Most Valuable Magazine in the World,” in Folio: the Magazine for Magazine Publishing, Vol. 20, No. 3, March 1, 1991, pp. 111–12.

In the following essay, Bromfield summarizes Bok's contributions as editor of the Ladies' Home Journal.

In 1889, Louisa Knapp, editor of Ladies' Home Journal since 1883 and wife of founder Cyrus Curtis, relinquished her editorial duties. Curtis hired 26-year-old Edward William Bok as her replacement.

In appointing Bok as editor, Curtis made an excellent choice, for it was under Bok's direction that Ladies' Home Journal achieved its position in 1920 as the most valuable magazine property in the world, with two million in circulation and often over $1 million in advertising.

Bok seemed intuitively to know what his audience wanted—a magazine for “the intelligent American woman,” as he said, “rather than the intellectual type.” He developed regular columns that would appeal to this woman: “Unknown wives of...