SOURCE: Zuckerman, Mary Ellen. “Birth of the Big Six.” In A History of Popular Women's Magazines in the United States, 1792-1995, pp. 3-23. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998.

In the following essay, portions of which were published in 1989, Zuckerman discusses the major American women's magazines of the late nineteenth century.

Over fifty girls are employed to keep the subscription books during each day and a dozen others come to work at six p.m. and remain three hours every night.

—Ladies' Home Journal, 1887¹

The death of Godey's Lady's Book publisher Louis Godey in 1878 and that of its editor Sarah Josepha Hale the following year symbolized the end of an era for women's journals. This queen of the antebellum women's magazines had fallen on hard times, unable to keep up with the changing interests of readers. A spate of new women's magazines appeared in the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s. Changes...