Good Housekeeping

Good Housekeeping is an American women's magazine featuring articles about women's interests, product testing by The Good Housekeeping Institute, recipes, diet, and health, as well as literary articles. It is well known for the "Good Housekeeping Seal", a limited warranty program that is popularly known as the "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval".[2][3][4]

Good Housekeeping
January 2015 cover featuring Julie Walters
Editor-in-chiefJane Francisco
CategoriesHome economics, women's interest
FrequencyMonthly
PublisherHearst Magazines
Total circulation
(2011)		4,014,028[1]
First issueMay 2, 1885 (1885-05-02)
CountryUnited States
Based inNew York City, New York, U.S.
LanguageEnglish
Websitewww.goodhousekeeping.com
ISSN0017-209X

Good Housekeeping was founded in 1885 by American publisher and poet Clark W. Bryan. By the time of its acquisition by the Hearst Corporation in 1911, the magazine grown to a circulation of 300,000 subscribers. By the early 1960s, it had over 5 million subscribers and was one of the world's most popular women's magazines.

History and profile
Masthead for the first issue of Good Housekeeping as it appeared on May 2, 1885

On May 2, 1885 (1885-05-02), Clark W. Bryan founded Good Housekeeping in Holyoke, Massachusetts as a fortnightly magazine.[5][6] The magazine became a monthly publication in 1891.[7]

The magazine achieved a circulation of 300,000 by 1911, at which time it was bought by the Hearst Corporation.[8] It topped one million in the mid-1920s, and continued to rise, even during the Great Depression and its aftermath. In 1938, a year in which the magazine advertising dropped 22 percent, Good Housekeeping showed an operating profit of $2,583,202, more than three times the profit of Hearst's other eight magazines combined,[9] and probably the most profitable monthly of its time. Circulation topped 2,500,000 in 1943, 3,500,000 in the mid-1950s, 5,000,000 in 1962, and 5,500,000 per month in 1966. 1959 profits were more than $11 million.[10]

Good Housekeeping is one of the "Seven Sisters", a group of women's service magazines.[7]

In 1922, the Hearst Corporation created a British edition along the same lines, named British Good Housekeeping.[11]

Famous writers who have contributed to the magazine include A. J. Cronin, Betty Friedan,[12] Frances Parkinson Keyes,[13] Clara Savage Littledale,[14] Edwin Markham, Somerset Maugham,[15][12] Edna St. Vincent Millay,[15][12] J. D. Salinger,[16] Evelyn Waugh,[15] and Virginia Woolf.[15] Other contributors include advice columnists, chefs, and politicians.[12]

Good Housekeeping Research Institute
Cover from August 1908 made by John Cecil Clay.

In 1900, the "Experiment Station", the predecessor to the Good Housekeeping Research Institute (GHRI), was founded. In 1902, the magazine was calling this "An Inflexible Contract Between the Publisher and Each Subscriber." The formal opening of the headquarters of GHRI – the Model Kitchen, Testing Station for Household Devices, and Domestic Science Laboratory – occurred in January 1910.[17]

In 1909, the magazine established the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. Products advertised in the magazine that bear the seal are tested by GHRI and are backed by a two-year limited warranty. About 5,000 products have been given the seal.[18]

In April 1912, a year after Hearst bought the magazine, Harvey W. Wiley, the first commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (1907–1912), became head of GHRI and a contributing editor whose "Question Box" feature ran for decades.[19] Beginning with a "Beauty Clinic" in 1932, departments were added to the Institute, including a "Baby's Center", "Foods and Cookery", and a "Needlework Room". Some functioned as testing laboratories, while others were designed to produce editorial copy.

After the passage of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act in 1938, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Rexford Tugwell sought to promote a government grading system. The Hearst Corporation opposed the policy in spirit, and began publishing a monthly tabloid attacking federal oversight. In 1939, the Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint against Good Housekeeping for "misleading and deceptive" guarantees including its Seal of Approval, and "exaggerated and false" claims in its advertisements. The publisher fought the proceedings for two years, during which time competing editors from the Ladies Home Journal and McCall's testified against Good Housekeeping. The FTC's ultimate ruling was against the magazine, forcing it to remove some claims and phraseology from its ad pages. The words "Tested and Approved" were dropped from the Seal of Approval. But the magazine's popularity was unaffected, steadily rising in circulation and profitability. In 1962, the wording of the Seal was changed to a guarantee of "Product or Performance", while dropping its endorsement of rhetorical promises made by the advertisers. In its varying forms, the Seal of Approval became inextricably associated with the magazine, and many others (e.g., McCall's, Parents Magazine, and Better Homes and Gardens) mimicked the practice.

In 2012, the test kitchen of the Good Housekeeping Research Institute was implemented into a new instructional cooking, nutrition, and exercise TV show on the Cooking Channel, entitled Drop 5 lbs with Good Housekeeping.[20]

International editions

Good Housekeeping began to be published in the United Kingdom in 1922.[21] William Randolph Hearst appointed Alice Maud Head initially as assistant editor. Head rose to be the Managing Director, as well as purportedly being the highest paid woman in Europe. As Hearst's deputy, Head would make decisions on his behalf about not just editing, but also buying for him St Donat's Castle, expensive art objects, and three giraffes for his zoo. Head remained head until 1939.[22]

In Latin America, the magazine was known as Buenhogar. It was published in the United States and Latin America by Editorial América.

American editors
  • Clark W. Bryan (1885–1898)
  • James Eaton Tower (1899–1913)
  • William Frederick Bigelow (1913–1942)
  • Herbert Raymond Mayes (1942–1958)
  • Wade Hampton Nichols, Jr. (1959–1975)
  • John Mack Carter (1975–1994)
  • Ellen Levine (1994–2006)
  • Rosemary Ellis (2006–2013)[23]
  • Jane Francisco (2013–present)[23]

See also

References
  1. "eCirc for Consumer Magazines". Audit Bureau of Circulations. June 30, 2020. Retrieved October 7, 2020.
  2. "The History of the Good Housekeeping Seal". Good Housekeeping. October 1, 2011. Retrieved December 19, 2018.
  3. "Earning Good Housekeeping's Seal of Approval". CBS News. 2013 CBS Interactive Inc. March 24, 2013. Retrieved August 2, 2020.
  4. Ewoldt, John (October 4, 2018). "Will anyone unfamiliar with the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval 'get' MOA's new store?". Star Tribune. Retrieved August 2, 2020.
  5. Belkin, Lisa (June 15, 1985). "Good Housekeeping's Seal Stamps Its Approval". Milwaukee Journal. Retrieved June 18, 2010.
  6. "Top 100 U.S. Magazines by Circulation" (PDF). PSA Research Center. n.d. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 28, 2018. Retrieved February 6, 2016.
  7. "Good Housekeeping". Encyclopedia.com. July 23, 2020. Retrieved August 2, 2020.
  8. Ibrahim, Magda (February 12, 2015). "Magazines ABCs: Women's monthlies led by Good Housekeeping". MediaWeek. Retrieved April 24, 2016.
  9. Printer's Ink, Vol. 186, March 16, 1939, pg. 16.
  10. Mott, Frank Luther (1968). A History of American Magazines. Harvard University Press. pp. 140–143.
  11. Hart, Carolyn (October 24, 2014). "Good Housekeeping Institute: meet the team testing every item in your home". ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  12. "Good Housekeeping". America's Mailing Industry. National Postal Museum, Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved August 2, 2020.
  13. Carr, Jane Greenway (April 7, 2016). "Frances Parkinson Keyes (1885–1970)". Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities. Retrieved August 2, 2020.
  14. "Mother of Two Children, She Helped Raise A Million More: Former Newspaper Woman Directs Staff of Experts Who Write Magazine on Child Rearing Read by Five Hundred Thousand Parents". Lewiston Sun-Journal. September 7, 1937. p. 15A. Retrieved August 2, 2020.
  15. "Good Housekeeping, 1910". Modernist Journals Project. Brown University and University of Tulsa. n.d. Retrieved August 2, 2020.
  16. Salinger, J. D. (February 1948). "A Girl I Knew". Good Housekeeping. Hearst Communications, Inc.
  17. "The 100th Anniversary of the Good Housekeeping Research Institute". Good Housekeeping. Hearst Communications, Inc. Archived from the original on January 4, 2008. Retrieved January 12, 2008.
  18. Nicholls, Walter (January 2, 2008). "Surviving the Test of Time: At Good Housekeeping, A Modern Makeover And Old-Fashioned Appeal". Washington Post.
  19. "Dr. Wiley's Debut as Editor; He Says He Will Be a Watchdog for the Nation's Housekeepers". The New York Times. April 26, 1912. p. 9.
  20. "Cooking Channel Serves Up Fresh Series". Pop Tower. New York, New York. December 7, 2011. Archived from the original on March 26, 2016.
  21. Ping Shaw (1999). "Internationalization of the women's magazine industry in Taiwan context, process and influence". Asian Journal of Communication. 9 (2): 17–38. doi:10.1080/01292989909359623.
  22. Pugh, Martin (2004). "Head, Alice Maud (1886–1981)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved April 20, 2017.
  23. Steigrad, Alexandra (November 12, 2013). "Good Housekeeping Names Jane Francisco; Longtime editor in chief Rosemary Ellis is leaving the publication to "pursue new opportunities"". Women's Wear Daily. Retrieved August 2, 2020.

Official web sites:

From the Library of Congress:

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