The Improbable First Century of Cosmopolitan Magazine

Preface

vii By all rights, Cosmopolitan should not have survived its first hundred years. Born in March 1886, it nearly died during summer 1888 when it suspended publishing for two months. A publisher of a religious magazine revived it, then sold it to a wealthy adventurer-entrepreneur from Colorado who saved it. It was dying again by summer 1905. William Randolph Hearst rescued it. Hearst Corporation executives were ready to kill it early in 1965, but they took a chance on an editor who promised a dramatic transformation. Helen Gurley Brown kept her promise. Cosmopolitan survived because it transformed itself: from a family literary magazine to a general magazine filled with articles on national and international topics and fiction; then to a sensationalist magazine that emphasized exposé articles and political commentary from 1905 to 1912; then to a quality fiction magazine that published the most popular and highly paid authors, and enlivened their stories with fine illustrations from the most popular and highly paid artists of the 1920s; and, finally, to a magazine for younger women, either married or single, who liked its mix of articles on careers, celebrities, relationships , sex, and various topics the traditional women’s periodicals had not presented in such a lively and occasionally risqué style. From a floundering publication at its start to its centenary stature as the centerpiece of the Hearst publishing empire, Cosmopolitan was alternately mediocre , admirable and respectable, sensational, literary, mediocre again, and sensational again. It might seem obvious that a magazine, or any business, must be dynamic to survive. Yet many dynamic magazines that competed with Cosmopolitan during its first hundred years failed—some because they changed editorial format too quickly and alienated loyal readers while not attracting new readers; some because they blended old and new formats, thereby losing a specific editorial identity and purpose; some because they chose a new format in a category already occupied by dominant magazines. Consider this list of magazines, P r e f a c e viii Preface each one a competitor of Cosmopolitan at different times during its first hundred years and each one a casualty of intense competition for readers and advertisers : American, Century, Collier’s, Liberty, Forum, Mademoiselle, McCall’s, McClure’s, Munsey’s, Outlook, Scribner’s. Also consider these other famous failures , victims of economic or social trends: Life, Look, Pictorial Review, Saturday Evening Post, Woman’s Home Companion. All tried to survive, but either their readers stopped reading them or—more often the case—advertisers stopped buying pages because other publications had better demographics (age, gender, income) or another choice was more economical and efficient. The importance of advertising revenue to the survival of Cosmopolitan, or any magazine, cannot be overemphasized. Many of the magazines previously listed among the dead were quite popular with readers, but disappeared anyway . Life distributed five million copies a week until its demise, Pictorial Review distributed three million copies, and Collier’s nearly as many. Advertising revenue has been a matter of life or death to most magazines since the 1890s. Editorial dynamics enabled Cosmopolitan to publish, and eventually prosper , for more than a century. In an industry known for spectacular failures, for startups that disappeared quickly, and for legendary titles that suffered slow, sad deaths, Cosmopolitan demonstrated remarkable agility to find a niche in the magazine marketplace. Its readership demographics from the 1890s until the mid-1930s were exceptional, composed of affluent men and women who lived in classy city neighborhoods and upscale suburbs. Cosmopolitan’s slide into mediocrity from the 1950s to the mid-1960s reflected its lackluster demographics. The revival of Cosmopolitan under the leadership of Helen Gurley Brown generated a unique demographic consisting mostly of twentysomething to thirty-something women who were employed and earning good money—exactly the readers that advertisers wished to reach. Dynamic personalities determined the fate of Cosmopolitan, too: Paul Schlicht, its founder and a person whose ambition exceeded his ability; John Brisben Walker, an energetic and impulsive idealist whose restive mind fostered editorial excellence; William Randolph Hearst, an intelligent and irresponsible publisher whose editorial vendettas and crusades did damage and also brought reform; Ray Long, a brilliant and vain editor whose literary judgment attracted a million -plus faithful readers; Helen Gurley Brown, an ambitious and savvy achiever whose sense of what younger women wanted in a magazine proved incredibly perceptive. Gurley Brown certainly became the most well-known Cosmopolitan editor. To many readers of the magazine, she was Cosmopolitan. Her monthly column near the front was...