Remembering the Glamorous Early Years of Ladies’ Home Journal
Yesterday, the Meredith Corporation announced that Ladies’ Home Journal will cease monthly publication following this year’s July issue. The 131-year-old monthly is the second of the “Seven Sisters” women’s magazines — Better Homes and Gardens, Good Housekeeping, Family Circle, Redbook, and Women’s Day — to go out of print (McCall’s folded in 2002), though it will not shut down completely: According to a Meredith spokesman, the publication will maintain its website and print a special interest publication to be sold on newsstands, rather than by subscription.
We will remember LHJ fondly for its smiling housewives, punny cover lines, dedication to the “grown-up” demographic (makeup for grown-ups, school shopping for grown-ups, creepy Halloween cocktails for grown-ups, watermelon for grown-ups), and devotion to many-time cover girl Mariska Hargitay — as well as their century-long archive of glorious, vintage covers, from Audrey Hepburn to Jackie O. and Norman Rockwell to Man Ray. Click through the slideshow for our favorite vintage LHJ covers.
