SOURCE: Thompson, Eleanor Wolf. “The Magazines and Their Editors.” In Education for Ladies 1830-1860: Ideas on Education in Magazines for Women, pp. 1-23. Morningside Heights, N. Y.: King's Crown Press, 1947.

In the following essay, Thompson discusses the many magazines for women in pre-Civil War America.

The Magazine for ladies in the United States¹—north, south, east, and west—in the decades before the Civil War was Godey's Lady's Book.² Was it not named The Lady's Book, with an accent on “the” and did not the astute Mr. Godey tell his readers that it was “the book of the nation”³ and keep them informed of its ever growing circulation until in January 1860, he could with joy “wish his hundred and fifty thousand subscribers the compliments of the season”?⁴ The understanding Mr. Godey did not for a moment think every lady read her own Lady's Book.⁵ In January 1859 he estimated...