Magazines like Good Housekeeping and Ladies Home Journal have been published since the late 19th century. In the late 1950s and early 60s, readers could find serialized fiction and serious non-fiction sandwiched between recipes for Jell-O salad and housework how-to’s. Now, high circulation women’s magazines hardly include long-form pieces at all, much less excerpted novels, or hard-hitting journalism.
Laura Vanderkam writes for City Journal. Her article “Journey Through the Checkout Racks,” explores this shift in content found in women’s magazines, and what it means for its target audience.
