ISTD_27/01 by Emi Daly

ISSUE NO. 1 Print Copy July 2022

How Beeton’s Book of Household Management Changed the Face of Women’s Publishing

AS IT IS WITH THE COMMANDER OF AN ARMY, SO IT IS WITH THE MISTRESS OF A HOUSE. ISABELLA BEETON

FROM THE EDITOR

A Woman’s Place is a magazine created by women, for women. Inspired by one of the first female publications; Beeton’s Book of Household Management, we aim to produce 24 issues that centre on the history of women’s publishing. Our magazine has chosen to shed light on women’s voices and stories, rather than their appearance. For this reason, A Woman’s Place focuses on words, not images. For too long, magazines have been obsessed with women’s bodies and looks, and in doing so, their messages are lost and their voices are silenced. This, our first-ever issue, is an ode to our inspiration; the marvellous Mrs. Beeton. Published 160 years ago, her book empowered young women the world over. Beeton was the first to applaud women’s work in the home, and the profound impact she made during a short life has stood largely unrivalled by any other woman of her time. Generations of young women relied on the book’s advice when they had nobody to turn to, and it stands as a unique insight into the everyday domestic life of women during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Her groundbreaking projects are recognised as the some of the very first ‘lifestyle publications’, and gave rise to the women’s magazines that we are familiar with today. Magazines had a remarkable influence on how society saw and spoke about femininity, as well as the way in which these women viewed themselves. These publications serve us as time capsules, and we will look at how they document the changes in women’s roles over the last two centuries. I hope this issue opens your eyes to the impact that one woman can have on the course of history. 25-year-old Isabella’s unique command of language challenged crushing patriarchal norms, and pushed the boundaries of feminine discourse further than ever before. Almost 200 years later, Isabella Beeton still stands as a remarkable role model for women far and wide.

SARAH A. CHRISMAN EDITOR

THE VICTORIAN PHENOMENON Exploring the original Domestic Bible and the life of the incredible woman who wrote it. 08–21

AN INHERITED TRADITION A look into the impact Beeton’s use of language had on women the world over. 22–37

GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS Tracing the history of feminine publishing after the publication of Beeton’s book. 38–45

TYPE OF TALK

LANGUAGE IN MAGAZINES A look at how the language of these magazines has shaped our ideals and view of womanhood. 46–59

DEATH OF THE DOMESTIC GODDESS What place do role models like Beeton hold in the society of the 21st century? 60–67

THE VICTORIAN -MENON

Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management was a Victorian publication like no other. Published in 1861, it came to be one of the most famous books of the 19th century. The book was a huge success and sold nearly two million copies by 1868. Although it is over 150 years since she died, the name ‘Mrs. Beeton’ is still known around the world. Her book was a beloved companion for young women who, for the first time in history, had not learned household skills from their mothers. It changed the perspective on the role of women in the home and in wider society.

I / The Victorian Phenomenon

HELENE HANLON

MRS. BEETON S BOOK OF HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT

What people read has a lot to tell us about their culture, and Beeton’s Book of Household Management was one of Victorian Britain’s favourite books. With 2,000 recipes and 1,000 pages of advice on every aspect of household management, is regarded as the very first Domestic Bible. Covering topics from cooking and cleaning to childrearing and relations between husband and wife, Beeton’s book was trendsetting publication that a spoke to the common issues faced by women starting out in life. The hefty tome remains one of the most famous books of non-fiction ever published, and is still in print today. Beeton aimed Household Management at an emerging generation of middle-class women who had moved away to large Victorian cities, and, in the absence of their own mothers, needed maternal expertise on the uncharted territories of marriage and motherhood. Targeting a new, untapped demographic, Beeton’s book was a modern and groundbreaking piece of women’s publishing, that helped housewives navigate the pressures of Victorian society. 10

A Woman’s Place

Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management

Increased mobility during the Industrial Revolution meant that young housewives lived in different towns from their families, and with no-one to turn to, they needed help to navigate the early years of married life. For middle-class Victorian ladies, the challenge of managing a household was made immeasurably easier with the aid of Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management. Isabella Mary Mayson was born in London in March 1836. The eldest girl in a family of 21 children, she was forced to assist her mother in household duties and the rearing of her younger siblings. In 1856, Isabella married Sam Beeton, who owned and edited the pioneering monthly periodical the Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine. She was a working journalist herself, and began her career in 1857 by contributing three articles a month to her husband’s magazine. In 1859, aged just 25, Mrs. Beeton began writing a series of monthly instalments in the periodical, later compiled and published in one volume as her Book of Household Management. In the first year alone, it sold more than 60,000 copies. Over the next few years, it would sell 2 million more. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term ‘Mrs. Beeton’ became used as a generic term for ‘an authority on cooking and domestic subjects’ as early as 1891. Explaining her reasons for expanding those separately published columns into one, comprehensive guide, she said; “What moved me, in the first instance, to

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attempt a work like this, was the discomfort and suffering which I had seen brought upon men and women by household mismanagement.” Upon its publication, Household Management was met with instant acclaim. Beeton’s book far eclipsed those of her predecessors, as her particular tone offered inspiration and assurance to her readers. The book was a domestic encyclopedia, offering advice on all aspects of the successful running of a house. Any woman who felt her position to be unimportant and useless could be persuaded by the strength of Mrs. Beeton’s rhetoric.

“ The mistress is the first and the last; the Alpha and the Omega in her establishment.” It was not only the rhetoric that made Beeton’s book a Victorian phenomenon. Her guide included innovations that changed the face of cookbooks for generations to come. She was the first writer to list ingredients at the beginning of the recipe, and the first to supply recommended cooking times. As a result, her recipes are easy to follow even for those with no experience. She also included a detailed ‘Analytical Index’, which was part and parcel of Beeton’s genius for organising information. She possessed a talent for conveying ideas to a middle-class au-

I / The Victorian Phenomenon

dience and celebrated household economy as a useful science rather than something to be ashamed of. The book was broad enough in scope to be of interest to everyone from the female managers of great estates down to their humble servants. The pages listing servants’ duties and wages were just as useful to the servants themselves as they were to their employers. Household Management was an unimpeachable reference as to what they should expect from the people they worked for, and of what, in turn, was expected of them. The book’s primary audience, however, was the housewives of a burgeoning middle class. For these women, the book was their servant— and quite a good one at that. Household Management contains advice whose practicality is timeless. In Beeton’s eyes, the woman in charge of a home had as much responsibility and deserved as much respect as any other manager. She wanted women to feel that keeping house was just as important as any man’s job, and she famously compared the mistress of a household with a ‘Commander of an Army’. For her, the comfortable middle-class home is nothing less than the foundation of a properly functioning moral economy. It is hard to shake off the thought that Mrs. Beeton’s work is exactly the kind of anti-feminist and gender-stereotyping literature that we aim to abolish now. However, despite keeping women within their domestic spheres, her book

created a sisterhood that allowed women to feel that they had some control within a lifelong career that was forcibly thrust upon them by society. It was an important milestone for housewives everywhere. Historians have labelled her work a ‘powerful force in the making of Victorian middle-class domesticity.’ In February 1865, less than four years after the publication of Household Management, Isabella Beeton sadly died from puerperal fever during the birth of her fourth child. She was twenty-eight years old. After her death, the book became increasingly popular. It was regularly updated, with new details of modern inventions. Readers did not know or care whether ‘Mrs. Beeton’ herself was responsible for updating the book. All that mattered was that ‘her’ advice continued to feel relevant. Household Management has been in print since it was first published in 1861. It has remained a bestseller and can be purchased from booksellers all over the world. It is so much more than a 19th-century cookbook. Perhaps her early death is what allowed her spirit to be so adaptable; taking on many different meanings for many different people. Every woman who sought advice in her work had an ideal image in their mind of its author. In death, she achieved divine status.

A Woman’s Place

IT IS THE DUTY OF THE WIFE TO TURN THE HOME INTO A

IDYLL.

I / The Victorian Phenomenon

Isabella Mayson born in London

Father dies and mother remarries

Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens

July Revolution takes place in France

1830

Isabella Beeton had a tragically short life, dying during the birth of her second son at just 28 years old. This is a timeline of major events in both literature and world events that took place during her lifetime.

Tell-Tale Heart, Edgar Allan Poe

Queen Victoria ascends to the throne

1835

Attends culinary classes in Germany

1840

Moby Dick, Herman Melville

Great Famine begins in Ireland

Great Exhibition opens in London

1845

1850

Mrs. Beeton Literature World Events

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Timeline of Mrs. Beeton’s Life

Begins writing her cooking column

Marries Sam Beeton

Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine, Samuel Beeton

1855

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Dies of puerperal fever in childbirth

Book of Household Management published

On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin

1860

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

American Civil War comes to an end

Vladimir Lenin born in Ulyanovsk

1865

1870

The Short Life and Long Times of Isabella Beeton

KATHRYN HUGHES

THE SHORT LIFE AND LONG TIMES OF ISABELLA BEETON

On Boxing Day 1932, the National Portrait Gallery opened an exhibition of new acquisitions to the public. There were twenty-three likenesses on display, all of which were to be added to the nation’s permanent collection of the great and the good. Oddly out of place among the confident new arrivals, all oily swirls, ermine, and purposeful stares, was a small hand-tinted photograph of a young woman dressed in the fashion of nearly a hundred years ago. She had a heavy helmet of dark hair, a veritable fuss of brooch, handkerchief, neck chain, and shawl, and the fixed expression of someone who has been told they must not move for fear of ruining everything. The caption beneath her announced that here was ‘Isabella Mary Mayson, Mrs Beeton (1836–65)’, journalist and author of the famous Book of Household Management. That the trustees of the gallery decided to hang Mrs. Beeton on their walls says something about changing attitudes to the recent past. During the twenty-five years following the old Queen’s death, the Victorians had seemed like the sort of people to keep your distance from. An article in The Times had begun: ‘Mrs. Beeton lived in the Victorian era, which, as everyone knows, was dismally frumpish.’ People began to wonder about the names that had formed the background chatter to their childhood. One of the trustees explained why he thought the time might be right for the National Portrait Gallery to acquire a portrait of Mrs. Beeton: ‘Recently we were bequeathed a portrait of Bradshaw, the originator of the Railway Guide, and I think that Mrs. Beeton is at least a parallel case.’ The Gallery’s trustees decided that they were prepared to accept, for the first time in their history, a photographic portrait to hang among their splendid oils and marble busts. The circumstances of Beeton’s life had managed to keep her hidden from history. She was only 28 when she died, which meant few letters written, few diaries kept and even fewer photographs taken (the National Portrait Gallery picture is one of only two surviving adult portraits). Details about her death — and hence her life — were suppressed almost from the moment she drew her last breath in 1865. In order to protect their investment in the growing ‘Mrs. Beeton’ brand, the publishers let readers think that the lady herself

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I / The Victorian Phenomenon

was alive, well, and busy testing recipes to go into the endless editions of her monumental work that were proliferating in the marketplace. Beeton had become the goose whose eggs were solid gold. In these circumstances, half contrived and half chance, she slipped straight from life into myth. So by 1932, and after decades of foggy indifference, the public was ready to be intrigued by the revelation that Mrs. Beeton, whose name they knew so well, had indeed been a living, breathing person. The presentation of the little photograph to the public had provoked a gratifying amount of press coverage. One writer set the approving mood when he declared: “Mrs. Beeton is the most famous English authoress who ever lived. Her name is a household word in thousands of homes in which Jane Austen is as little known as Sappho;

“ Household Management achieved the deathlessness of a classic, as well as the circulation of a best-seller.” Other journalists followed this lead, waxing lyrical about the Confucius of the kitchen. The Evening News made the shrewd suggestion that part of this sudden interest in Mrs. Beeton might be the fact that she spoke from a bygone world when “homes were homes, when cooks were cooks.” Beeton started to become one of the most widely recognized images circulating in British print culture. There was something about the enigmatic young woman in the photograph that encouraged all kinds of speculations and projections. For by 1932, and with Britain mired in economic depression, political uncertainty, and social unrest, it was easy to feel wistful for a time when middle-class homes could afford to keep a full complement of domestic staff, none of whom would think of answering back. The photograph was reproduced in countless newspaper articles, and went on sale in August 1933 as a postcard in the National Portrait Gallery’s shop, where it quickly established itself as the third most popular portrait in the whole collection. Beeton became one of the most widely recognized images circulating in British print culture.

From the moment of her death in 1865, she became a potent commercial and cultural force. Detached from her mortal body, the ghostly Mrs. Beeton could be appropriated for a whole range of purposes. In the 150 years since she died she has been turned into the subject of a musical and several plays. She was once almost on Broadway. Every October images from her book are turned into bestselling Christmas cards. At the time of writing, you can take your pick from Mrs. Beeton’s Cookery in Colour, Tea with Mrs. Beeton, Mrs. Beeton’s Healthy Eating, and, oddest of all, Mrs. Beeton’s Hand-Made Gifts (although this is nothing compared with Mrs. Beeton’s Caribbean Cookery from a couple of decades ago). The image of her face has been worked into tea towels and stamped on table mats. You can even buy an apron adorned with her likeness in which to wrap yourself, in the hope perhaps that her qualities, whatever they might be exactly – will rub off. The profound and lasting impact Isabella made during her short life has stood largely unrivalled by any other woman of her time. Generations of young women relied on her advice when they had nobody to turn to. Her book now stands as a unique insight into domestic life in the 19th and early 20th centuries. For if Mrs. Beeton is still to be remembered in another 150 years’ time it will not be for writing the Book of Household Management, a book that surely very few people have read right through, but rather for holding up a mirror to our most intimate needs and desires. By representing ‘Home’ – the place we go to be loved and fed – Mrs. Beeton has become part of the fabric of who we feel ourselves to be.

A Woman’s Place

AN TRADITION

The Book of Household Management quickly became the standard wedding present for young women, who brought it with them to the British colonies around the world. The first to discuss matters of the home in simple and straighforward terms, the book and became an invaluable asset to young women throughout the Empire. It was also regularly updated, which allowed it to maintain its relevancy.

II / An Inherited Tradition

At the time Beeton published Household Management, the British Empire was expanding to become the largest in history. Young Britons carried her book to far corners of the world. This map shows the Empire’s colonies and protectorates at the turn of the century.

Ireland 1801

Canada 1867

Great Britain 1707

The Gambia 1843

British Guiana 1831

Gold Coast 1821

Sierra Leone 1808

Nigeria 1884

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Spread Throughout the Empire

Sudan 1899

Oman 1891

India 1858

British Burma 1885

Papua New Guinea 1884

Somaliland 1884

South Africa 1806

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Rhodesia 1895

British Malaya 1826

Brunei 1888

Australia 1827

New Zealand 1841

I WRITE FOR

II / An Inherited Tradition

CHISATO YAMADA

FAR FROM THE PERFECT HOUSEWIFE

Isabella Beeton may now be remembered chiefly for her invention of the infamous ‘toast sandwich’, but her Book of Household Management provided much more than just recipes and tips on keeping your home running smoothly. In her unique use of language, she challenged traditional Victorian ideals, and called into question the accepted representation of domesticity. Chisato Yamada explains why Beeton’s guide is much more than just a cookbook, but changed the way young women saw and conducted themselves in the Victorian Age. By the time Panton introduced the book in 1890 as offering a bit of ‘common sense’ regarding household management, it had already become a Bible for the young housewives of the late nineteenth century. Mrs. Beeton’s name and status had made her a very well-known figure, and her Book of Household Management was only gaining in its popularity. However, it seems her now-infamous life and her matronly character as an ideal middle-class housewife, were largely misconstrued and distorted by history. 26

A Woman’s Place

Far From The Perfect Housewife

After Isabella’s short life ended at age twenty-eight, the details of her life story were distorted and misrepresented by her family and biographers. Therefore, The Book of Household Management is almost the only accessible and credible material in which Isabella left a few clues through which to gain a pivotal insight into her attitude to women’s domestic roles and lives. Isabella represented an ideal middle-class housewife, thus deeply challenging notions of Victorian domesticity. Household Management is almost the only accessible and credible material through which we gain a pivotal insight into women’s domestic roles and lives in the 19th century.

career, along with her peculiar ideas about the middle-class Victorian woman, undoubtedly affected their marital relationship. Thus, examining Isabella’s life and career will not only suggest the ideal figure of a Victorian housewife, but also reveal a very complex side of the Victorian household and its management during the mid-nineteenth century.

The book’s success was due in part to the way in which Isabella shifted the image of cooking from drudgery to pleasant, fashionable work with her intelligence and imagination. The most significant aspect was, however, her weaving of historical and anthropological strands into her account in order to create a connection between private cooking and femininity. This approach enabled her to represent a new way of life, not merely as a housewife but also as a writer and advocate for middle-class women. Since very little is known about her own domestic life, Kathryn Hughes’ biography offers new interpretations of Isabella’s writing in terms of her family relations. In some ways, the relationship between Isabella, who worked as a writer, and Samuel was extremely unusual. Her decision to support Samuel’s

As one of the busiest Victorian housemistresses, Isabella had neither stayed idly at home nor simply focused on domestic work: she herself was stalwartly mindful of being a good wife and being responsible for domestic management. Isabella worked devotedly for Samuel as mistress of his household, and, conversely, her work was truly supported by his strong affection toward her. Samuel actively participated in the furnishing of their home to make it comfortably established. This was intimately connected with the distribution of power between wife and husband. Isabella recognized that he “will have the entire management of me and I can assure you that you will find in me a most docile and willing pupil.” Her prospective words proved true when she involved herself enthusiastically in assisting with

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“ A woman must bear alone the great weight and responsibility of her situation.”

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Samuel’s periodicals. While Isabella’s intellectual curiosity and hatred for boredom stimulated his ideas, her energy undoubtedly spurred Samuel on, which created a complementary relationship between them. Most importantly, their strong partnership influenced not only their matrimonial relationship, but also Isabella’s professional motivation. Isabella received no payment from Samuel for her writings. Her biographer, Sarah Freeman, assumes that the lack of a salary was never a concern for Isabella, even though she must have been aware of her great contribution to her husband’s work. This reflects the norm in Victorian households whereby middle-class wives were financially dependent on their husbands. Therefore, if Samuel had paid Isabella for her contribution, it would have threatened her identity in a middle-class household. For Victorian women, earning money was seen as an infringement of their dignity and would “declass” them, a view that occasionally made exiles of middle-class women. Isabella’s career was definitely interwoven with her husband’s, which maintained their typical middle-class conjugal relations. For these reasons, it would be true to say that Isabella’s motivation to work was maintained by her passion for writing itself and her partnership with Samuel. Therefore, Isabella’s acceptance of the ideal notion of Victorian marital femininity represented the new mood of career-oriented women as well as

the typical attitudes and values of a working housewife: while Isabella commuted to Samuel’s office by train and worked as a writer with him, she was fully responsible for household management and raised her children. As more recent research has revealed, domestic spaces were more flexibly negotiated, with a more complex relationship between men and women than previous historians have recognized. This surely allows us to interpret Victorian professional life in a new way. The relationship between Isabella and Samuel did not encourage the separation of their respective spheres. Their lifestyle was rather unconventional but could be called a new middle-class life in the Victorian period.

Excerpt taken from The Ideal Victorian Housewife: Beeton’s Challenge to the Traditional Representation of Domesticity, Chisato Yamada, 2010.

Self-control and hard work became the most important characteristics of gentlemen. For Beeton, these virtues were also applicable to domestic duties, and she was aware of the importance of hard work as the key to success in the household. Working efficiently and systematically was an essential part of household management. Beeton’s challenge extended to improving the position of women by enhancing their professionalism as housewives. Reflecting social strands and her own lifestyle, she represented a new model of Victorian mistress, who was akin to “The Commander of an Army.” Giving female readers full responsibility over household management, she attempted to show independent housewives how to support their husbands in Victorian society.

A Woman’s Place

Far From The Perfect Housewife

Most Common Occupations for Women (%) U.S. Department of Labour 2019 census of civilian female working population

1900

2020

Domestic Servant

Teacher

Typewriter/ Secretary

Clerk/Cashier

Farm Labourer

Launderer

Saleswoman

Cook

Nurse

Retail Assistant

Manager

Waitress

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II / An Inherited Tradition

MEGAN WARD

THE ENGLISH-

WOMAN S

DOMESTIC MAGAZINE

In its first eight years, from its inception in 1852 to its upgrade and expansion in 1860, the Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine combined the class aspirations of its readership with cultural interest in the related virtues of domesticity and routine. The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine was a major departure from the typical women’s magazine of the period— starting with the use of the word “woman” in the title. The Lady’s Magazine and the Lady’s Museum had merged into La Belle Assemblee, then temporarily ceased publication in 1847, creating an opening in the market for women’s periodicals. Distinguishing itself from these magazines, the Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine targeted a middle and lower-middle-class audience; at 2p, it was significantly less expensive than the one-shilling lady’s magazines of the past. It was also less extravagant in appearance: about the size of a modern paperback book, with a plain cover and thirty-two pages of closely spaced type. Unlike the similarly priced Family Friend and The Christian Lady’s Magazine, the Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine was not particularly concerned with religion; it celebrated instead the amalgam of domestic ideology with generic morality. The word “English” in the title suggests that the two forms of the domestic, local and national, are inextricable. The editor, Sam Beeton, was eager to announce the originality of his project. He writes in the preface to the first issue, “The purposes and intentions of our little Magazine are of a nature so different to those of any other now before the public, that we think it necessary to explain at some length the leading features which we intend should characterise it.” The editorial tone is self-deprecating (“our little Magazine”) in order to be self-aggrandizing (“so different”), a characteristic strategy for sounding at once authoritative and accessible. The claim of its difference was true in one feature at least: its dissemination of practical advice for women running homes, particularly its inclusion of recipes and dress patterns. The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine’s greatest competitor in its early days was the New Monthly Belle Assemblee, published also as the Lady’s Cabinet. However, this magazine did not contain the

A Woman’s Place

The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine

patterns, recipes, or other practical instructions that characterized the Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine. The previous ladies’ magazines presented themselves as leisurely entertainment, focusing on light fiction, poetry, travelogues, and lengthy descriptions of fashion plates, with no instructions on how to reproduce the outfits pictured. In particular, Margaret Beetham claims it is “difficult to exaggerate the importance” of the EDM’s sewing and fancy-work patterns to future women’s publications. Nicola Humble points out that these innovations “remain features of inexpensive women’s magazine for the next century.” In 1857, the Ladies’ Treasury became one of the EDM’s earliest imitators, with a format that included, as its subtitle announced, “Entertaining Literature, Education, Fine Art, Domestic Economy, Needlework, and Fashion.” The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine worked to convey not only a sense of practicality and entertainment, but, above all, of middle-class solidity within reach of the upper echelons of the working classes. The magazine positioned itself as an authority on middle-class domestic life, but it did so in order to speak to those who did not have such authority. While the magazine targets “the woman who employed servants,” the actual readership probably included upper-level servants, too. The variety of readers contributes to the magazine’s multi-vocal, aspirational tone. The emphasis on perception in the passage is also typical— descriptions of sewing in the magazine are consistently presented as not just keeping feminine hands busy, but as molding sensory experiences through repetition or routine. The conception of patterns and their place in women’s daily lives extends beyond sewing in to an overt patterning of everyday sensing. The magazine’s presentation reveals much about the ways that industrial routine shaped the interaction of taste, class, and sensation in this period. The patterns were designed to be desirable yet accessible to readers who were of a class who could not possibly afford to buy clothes from Paris. The magazine positioned itself as an authority on middle-class domestic life, but it did so in order to speak to those who did not have such authority. The title, price, and monthly publication of the EDM designated a specific readership which

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it also sought self-consciously to create. So while the magazine targeted the woman who employed servants, the actual readership probably included upper-level servants, too. Several times the editor prefaces the bound edition with a comment such as, “henceforth no lady will consider her bookcase complete unless she numbers amongst its treasures the EDM.” The use of the word “lady” in tandem with his reference to the “treasures” of that lady’s bookcase, identifies the magazine as at once a reference guide and a status symbol. The guidance of the editorial voice remains strong, but the magazine also presents itself as a center within which the readers’ voices can congregate and overlap. A magazine, either as monthly issues or a yearly volume, progresses linearly as the issues accumulate. his information and attitude proved extremely popular. By 1857, five years after its launch, the magazine had a circulation of 50,000 readers. This speaks to the magazine’s influence and sense of its own presence. According to the Daily Telegraph,

“ She had, in one year, gained a greater number of patrons than any magazine in the entire British Empire.” The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine is typical of the period in its emphasis on the virtues of a strict routine in the home. Routinized behaviors were reliable and efficient, two domestic virtues that might be instilled by the working of patterns. The domestic woman embodies, as the magazine describes it, “the unseen, spiritual, mighty influence of Home, and Woman’s love: producing its desired effect and doing its work, more by invisible machinery... than by outspoken word.” This is distinct from the more-common admonishment found in the Ladies’ Treasury— “employment is the safeguard of the young female mind.” Rather than suggesting merely that idle hands breed bad thoughts, the EDM articulates a particular relationship between training and sentiment. The domestic routine should appear effortless, but the process is actually the reverse: affection is a result of routine, of her habitualized activity. Home is home only to the extent that it feels

II / An Inherited Tradition

at once like “woman’s love” and like “machinery.” The capacity for routinised thought, feeling, and action, in other words, was not limited to the industrial towns of the North but existed literally and imaginatively in the home. Isabella Beeton’s infancy was spent in her father’s fabric business. As a baby, she crawled among the giant fabric pillars, absorbing the smells and textures of the textile trade, the sharp tang of cotton, the powdery feel of velvet, and the flutter of muslin. Among its fiction, poetry, and advice, the magazine ncludes an article, “Cotton,” that breathlessly catalogues the immense system of industrial production: “We have twenty million spindles whirling their rapid course in spinning their cotton into yarn. This mass of cotton is woven in two thousand factories, employing four hundred thousand persons.” The “we” here is all of English cotton manufacturing, yet it is inseparable in tone from the editorial “we” that dictates pattern choice, and dispenses domestic advice. The magazine conceives of routine, domestic and industrial, as inherently English, moral, and modern. From its outset, it identifies taste as a defining feature of the middle-class woman and the home. The way women touch, taste, see, hear, and smell their surroundings is collapsed into an idea typically given the name of just one sense: taste, a physical and aesthetic response rife with class significance. The language used to describe the patterns takes them beyond the realm of the practical; they are a way of developing taste, inculcating a particular sensory response in the reader that she may interpret and present as feminine, middle-class aesthetic sensibility. The patterns are presented as both essential to forming a reader’s sense of taste and as products of that tastefulness. Initially the magazine includes just one or two patterns but increases the number of patterns and the amount of commentary until they become a distinguishing feature of the magazine. The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine attempts to define and codify taste both as a sensory response and as a value essential to middle-class femininity.

the uninitiated, who needed instruction in domestic management. The magazine’s cultural authority lay partially in its position as a repository of collected wisdom and partially in the reader’s own complicity in that wisdom. Characterizing itself as a helping hand, it embraced the “uninitiated, who, sometimes from carelessness, but oftener from the want of a guiding monitor” needed instruction in “domestic management; embracing as it does actions minute and insignificant in detail, but each one tending to swell the amount of happiness if performed, of misery if neglected.” Although these claims cannot be substantiated, they speak to the magazine’s influence and sense of its own presence. Between the Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine and its sister project Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, the Beetons were a formidable force in mid-century domestic instruction. The magazine emphasises the domestic woman as “the unseen, spiritual, mighty influence of Home, and Woman’s love: producing its desired effect and doing its work, more by invisible machinery... than by outspoken words”. The goal was to “make our humble publication a small means of assistance to the happy homes of our subscribers.” The project was extremely successful, cementing the pair as pioneers of feminine publishing, still remembered 150 years later. In catering for the ‘ordinary’ woman, they changed the face of women’s magazines, and sparked a phenomenon that continues to this day.

The guidance of the editorial voice remains strong, but the magazine also presents itself as a centre within which the readers’ voices can congregate. Characterising itself as a helping hand, it embraced

A Woman’s Place

BLESSED IS SHE WHO SEEKS TO MAKE HER .

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ROSITA BOLAND

FRANKLY FEMININE ADVICE FOR THE MODERN WOMAN

Billed as a ‘book of information and advice for the woman of today’, the title of Frankly Feminine is just about as blunt as they come. The 544-page manual was published in 1965 by Grolier Society, London, and edited by Eileen McCarthy. It can be seen a modern Household Management, aiming to provide a handbook for young women as they embarked on marital life. Unlike Beeton’s guide, however, this book is not feminist in tone. Despite the publishing date, its content seems to hark back to the 50s rather than the more liberated ‘Swinging Sixties’. With an emphasis distinctly on hearth and home, Frankly Feminine’s thirteen detailed sections cover topics ranging from beauty, relationships and manners to home-making, cookery, and entertaining. For the women who owned this book in 1965, it would have provided them with all the tools needed to deal with everything from “how to make a pretty speech” to “the secrets of sex appeal.” How does a book like this stand up in today’s world?

A Woman’s Place

Frankly Feminine

At the beginning of this hefty tome, the editor begins, “For today’s woman the world is limitless. She can come and go about the continents and the oceans; soon, if the fancy takes her, she may be exploring space, and setting up home on a satellite.” However, McCarthy goes on to write, “we shall always have the trick of finding our greatest contentment within a small and homely circle. Today’s complete woman – who finds happiness in her home, with her family, and friends” is for whom this book is written. A glance at the book’s contents reveals that Frankly Feminine tackles everything from beauty to gardening and room design to house insurance, as well as wedding, maternity, childcare and family life. The book also offers a crash course in cookery, covering baking, cuts of meat, types of fish and cooking for Christmas and other events. Even basic plumbing and carpentry techniques are included. As the book chidingly points out, “Handywomen sometimes fall down on jobs because their toolbox is poorly stocked.” The book is full of useful practical tips on household management . You can find an answer to almost any household problem. Frankly Feminine seemed to have its eye firmly on the better class of woman (complete or otherwise), giving advice on what household linen to buy and what cutlery will be required when setting up home for the first time. There was a clear expectation that

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the readers of this volume would be hosting dinner parties. The fashion and beauty advice take priority, with career advice trailing far behind. There is much emphasis on having and keeping a good figure to the extent of having a ‘Plump-Up Routine’ for women to gain curves. Plenty of advice on looking after face, hair, and hands, though there is not a single nonwhite woman to be seen in the book and a definite fondness for featuring pretty, slim blondes. Frankly Feminine encouraged women to see men not as friends but as potential husband material. “If we’re wise, we know when and how to give in gracefully.”

Excerpt taken from Man, I Feel Like a 1960s Woman, Rosita Boland for Irish Times, 2014.

“ There is no equality between sexes. Women are not on the same footing as men. We just aren’t world-shakers.” Frankly Feminine encourages women to think of men as people who can’t be expected to be relied upon. It says that women should allow for men’s ‘superiority complex’ and the fact that ‘Most men have very little sense of humour about themselves’. Not very promising. However, some advice can be sensible such as pointing out that we can’t expect happiness to come from without (‘like manna from heaven’), it has to come from within ourselves. Also,

II / An Inherited Tradition

‘Never make the mistake of thinking that life would be marvellous if you were doing something different”. There are useful and sensible pieces of life advice here, about being confident and independent, but the relationship advice seems very dated. Having said that, some advice would now be out of date, and much of the social etiquette would now be behind the times, but perhaps the parts of the advice still hold true. Frankly Feminine marks the passing of an era in which women’s lives were very different. Authors, female and male, have always relished telling women what to do. This plentiful advice literature prescribes proper behavior for women at every stage of their lives. What really occurs in women’s lives, of course, may bear little relationship to the conduct recommended in these works. The purity of mind advocated for nineteenth-century girls may rarely have existed in real life. Information contained in prescriptive literature must always be examined carefully and compared to experiences recounted in women’s own voices, with attention to class, age, race, and regional variations. Advice books like this had their heyday in the strict society of the 1950s, just as they had almost a century before with books like Household Management. While they may seem stuffy and conservative on the outside, there is still a lot to be learned from

these publications. As a piece of social and cultural history, Frankly Feminine is very instructive. It is a fascinating book for dipping into, but probably of more use now for the practical angle than the relationship or life advice. It is a unique insight into the way young women lived their lives, and forces us to come to terms with the misogyny and patriarchal regimens that our predecessors were subjected to. Seeing how lucky we are and how far we have come (although undeniably there is still more work to do) can really make the modern woman grateful for her newfound place in society. Over the past 60 years, the relationship dynamic between men and women has changed drastically. And while many are still fighting for equality, a look back at what life was like in the 1950s shows just how far we have come. Underpinning all the stories and tips in the book are themes of everyday lives of women, of their hopes and fears, from factory girls all the way uop to society debutantes, immigrants to beauty queens, is the prevailing notion of women who always felt that they fell short of perfection. Women whose reality never matched up to their aspirations. And whose actions and assumptions were governed by the idea that women have no independent identity outside men.

A Woman’s Place

Frankly Feminine

The advice sounds jarring now, as Rosita Boland discovered when she reviewed it with a friend;

RB— W ell, my first impression is that it’s written for girls going to finishing school. It’s so archaic. In the book, men cannot just be your friends. They are only seen as potential husbands. VW— In the book s eyes, the best way to get on well in a relationship is to be quiet and agreeable. They claim that if you are passive, men will stand by you and that will prevent you from shedding tears of frustration into your pillow at night. It’s basically telling you to suppress your real personality; that you never have the right to be angry. You have to suppress your feelings because you have to always be nice. It s almost saying you should not to be yourself. Its laughable. The parts about how women should behave towards men are so depressing. It claims that men were not born considerate , and are creatures who respond best to subtle treatment . Basically, if you want to be happy, you better accept the excuses a man makes for himself. Women’s worst fault is ‘over-emotionalism’ and men dislike our habit of treating them like small boys when they annoy us. It s all so insulting and unkind to men. Women are being told how to manipulate their relationships with men. It s telling us that women are emotional train wrecks and men are machines. Saying they respond best to subtle treatment makes them seem like animals. It’s about tricking men into doing what you want, not to mention how it talks about women’s bodies. Yeah, there s plenty of advice here for looking after face, hair, hands and neck too, although there is not a single non-white woman to be seen in the book. It definitely has a fondness for slim blondes like Grace Kelly— basically if you don’t fit that profile you’re wasting your time. It s all about forgetting who you really are.

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The Book of Household Management and its parent publication, the Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine, are regarded as the first ‘lifestyle publications’, and paved the way for women’s magazines. Their magazine was cheap and easily available, setting a blueprint for subsequent publications. Speaking on the problems faced every day by the ordinary woman, these magazines appealed to the masses. Over time, they became a vital source of not just entertainment, but companionship for generations of women all over the world.

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KATHRYN HUGHES

ZEAL AND SOFTNESS WOMEN S MAGAZINES DOWN THE AGES

The moment at which women’s magazines stopped being an elite product written and read by ladies with time on their hands, arrived in 1852 with the launch of the Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine. Here was a product targeted at a new market, the middle-class wife and mother who did most of her own housework. Edited and written by Samuel Beeton, a hyperactive young publisher and entrepreneur, it developed the format that still gets played out in domestic magazines. There were columns on pets and cookery (written eventually by Sam’s wife, Isabella Beeton of Household Management fame), and a strong emphasis on crafts. The master stroke of the magazine, however, was its coverage of fashion. By the 1860s, each issue featured a coloured plate showing young women crammed into the latest Parisian fashion, accompanied by detailed instructions on how to make the item at home. The magazine also contained a problem page. Every month, “Cupid’s Post Bag” featured a series of anguished letters from readers. In his bracing, evidently male persona of “Cupid”, Beeton was not afraid to jolly his “fair young friends” out of their self-pity. By the 1870s, however, the problem pages had taken on an alarming life of their own. Instead of asking for advice about gentlemen callers who had stopped calling, readers flooded the magazine with explicit letters about the pleasures of wearing tight corsets and the effectiveness of whipping young maidservants. What started out as saucy soon toppled over into downright pornographic (if you want to read the “tight-lacing” and “whipping” issues of the magazine in the British Library today, you have to sit at a special desk of shame under the watchful eye of a librarian). Increasingly it became impossible to tell whether these were genuine letters from domestic Englishwomen or feverish fakes inserted into Cupid’s post bag by none other than Cupid himself. Quite apart from its weirdness, this process points up the characteristically porous nature of women’s magazines. Just as readers became writers in early magazines, so today’s consumer of Woman’s Weekly or Grazia is urged to email in her reactions and stories, and in doing so generates more content for the magazine. Contemporary to the Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine was the Englishwoman’s Journal, which explicitly campaigned for women to have a legal,

A Woman’s Place

‘Zeal and Softness’

economic and social identity outside the home. This was not because the ladies that read the journal had anything against domesticity. But they wanted to make sure that when home life failed a woman there were alternatives to the faux-genteel option of becoming a governess. The Englishwoman’s Journal campaigned for girls to be trained as engravers, commercial artists, and schoolteachers. Aware of the potential offence of its message, the magazine was careful to take a high moral line. Magazines, rather than naturally occurring phenomena summoned up by their readers’ desires, are in fact commodities of the most intricate kind. Few other artefacts, after all, have to be sold twice simultaneously to be considered successful. But this is exactly what a magazine editor must do, selling her product both to the reader via the cover price and to the advertisers through the rate card. As a result, women’s magazines proliferate, clone and collapse according to a positively Darwinian model of the market. That is why the virtually identical Woman and Woman’s Own were started within a few years of each other by rival companies in the 1930s. It is why, in the late 70s, National Magazines released Company, as a way of mopping up some of the excess appetite created by its monster market leader, Cosmopolitan. It’s why, too, magazines are folded into one another when they start to fail. It happened in the 1830s when the Lady’s Magazine merged with La Belle Assemblee before quietly disappearing altogether, just as it happened over a hundred years later when Harper’s merged with the Queen to become Harpers & Queen. It then dropped the monarch and has reinvented itself as Harper’s Bazaar.

that “glossy” and “weekly” were not adjectives that could coexist together in the same sentence. For all their emphasis on nowness and newness, women’s magazines can only develop at the same rate as the culture itself, which means unevenly. The internet offers the chance to take a 1978 Cosmopolitan quiz entitled “How Liberated Are You?”, which includes questions both quaint - “Is it right that more men than women go to university?” - and bang up-todate - “Do you agree that women are expected to juggle too many roles?” What will happen to women’s magazines in the future is unclear. History suggests that they do well in a recession, with more launches during the difficult period of 1870-1900 than at any other time. Naysayers point to the internet as the eventual graveyard of the print magazine.

Excerpt taken from ‘Zeal and Softness’: Women’s Magazines Down the Centuries, Kathryn Hughes for the Guardian, December 2008.

“ The Beeton’s were pioneers of feminine publishing; the first to listen to and care about the concerns of women.” Perhaps the most important consideration is the way that, over the last 20 years, newspapers have increasingly colonised the tone, subjects and even formats of women’s magazines. Whether in standalone supplements or incorporated on to the feature pages, newspapers now roam through the familiar territories of love, sex, food, fashion and family. Sometimes they get it wrong, but more often they do it very well indeed. What exactly that leaves for women’s magazines, and whether they will be able to fashion something new out of readers’ residual desires, remains to be seen.

Working Woman, an imported American title that lasted for three brief years in the mid-1980s had a kind of fatal fissure running through it. On page after page, purposeful-looking women in business suits explained how they had got to the top in the corporate world. These articles were interspersed with pieces on how to find a mascara that would take you from boardroom to bedroom. As we know now, women who bustle around with briefcases read the Economist by day and switch to Vogue in the bath. They don’t need a hybrid that tries to do both. Riva lasted eight expensive weeks before bowing to the (at the time) inevitable conclusion

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THESE FEMALE PUBLICATIONS ARE TRULY

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1901

Harper’s Bazaar

Tatler

1861

1886

1916

Beeton’s Book of Household Management

Cosmopolitan

Woman and Home

1852–1879

1885

1920

The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine

Good Housekeeping

Ideal Home

1850

1867

1873–1957

1892

1911

Women’s Home Companion

Vogue

Woman’s Weekly

1870

1890

1910

A Woman’s Place

Timeline of Women’s Magazines

1964–2006 Family Circle

1932

1965–1975

1976–2001

2010

Woman Magazine

Nova

Working Woman

The Gentlewoman

1932

1955–2011

1972

2012

Woman’s Own

She

Ms. Magazine

Ladybeard

1930

1950

1970

1990

Still in Print No Longer in Print

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2010

The popularity of women’s magazines skyrocketed from the late 1800s on, with many publications founded that are still in print today. There was a magazine for every kind of woman— from wealthy heiresses and middle-class housewives, down to shopkeepers and even factory girls.

In this section, we have compiled striking quotes from women’s magazines over the last 130 years. Contrasting downright offensive language with what was seen as empowering at the time, the quotes provide a unique insight into our changing language, and reflecting developments in our culture. Women’s magazines capture the changing view of women in society. They reflected the pressure to be the ‘perfect housewife’, yet after the 1960s, we see these publications take on a more liberated tone, challenging many of these outdated expectations.

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RE OUR GIRLS A GETTING TOO INDEPENDENT The Ladies Home Journal, March 1892.

1890–1929

The great expansion of women’s magazines into a major industry dates back to the Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine (1852), as well as Myra’s Journal of Dress and Fashion (1875) and Weldon’s Ladies’ Journal (1875), both of which supplied dressmaking patterns and met the needs of a mass readership. Several quality magazines were started, such as The Lady (1885) and The Gentlewoman (1890), one of the first to acknowledge the financial necessity of advertisements, but there were many more cheap weeklies, such as Home Notes (1894), Home Chat (1895), and Home Companion (1897). Of US magazines, one of the hardiest was Harper’s Bazaar (1867), modeled on a Berlin women’s periodical, Der Bazar, from which it obtained its fashion material. The field of women’s magazines was finally transformed, however, by Cyrus Curtis with his Ladies’ Home Journal (1883). This soon reached a circulation of 400,000

and broke with sentimentality and piety to become a stimulating journal of real service to women. Other popular magazines were Ladies’ Home Companion (1886) Good Housekeeping (1885), which established a testing station for consumer goods early in the 20th century. Vogue (1892), a fashion weekly (later a monthly) dedicated to “the ceremonial side of life,” which was designed for the elite of New York City and had Cornelius Vanderbilt among its backers. However, because women subsribed to these magazines rather than encountering them on newsstands, the publishers did not have to ‘sell’ themselves through their front cover. They had no use for catchy headlines or provocative cover statements. The language in these magazines reflects its appeal to older audiences; primarily mothers of young women, who had money to spare. There

A Woman’s Place

1890–1929

“ THESE CLEVER DAUGHTERS OF CLEVER MEN.” The Ladies Home Journal, March 1892.

are countless articles that fuss and worry over the conduct of the ‘nation’s daughters’, capturing the sense of fear over exploitation of young women as emerging technologies opened up a whole new world of socialisation after the Industrial Revolution. Writers for these magazines debated whether the new fast-paced and liberal society was a safe place for their girls. Scrutinising and over-analysing conduct of these young women, they only served to add to the pressures placed on them. We can see the beginnings of some feminist leanings in these magazines, with emphasis being placed on remarkable female achievement. Articles often appeared which centred on female role models who excelled in all areas; industry, academia and domestic life. However, the success of these young women is rarely seen as something of their own

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making. As the headline above illustrates, female achievement was almost always associated with the men that ‘facilitated’ it. A woman was never recognised as truly successful on her own terms, and men were portrayed as vital contributors to her achievements. Relating the exceptional feats of a young girl to the success of her father, or a wife to her more ‘well-known’ husband, robbed women of their own independent triumphs, and belittled what they had accomplished on their own. Certainly, when women failed, there was no such comparison to their male counterparts. Success was always related back to the men in the story, placing as much praise on their shoulders as possible, but failure was seen to highlight the ‘frivolity’ and ‘weakness’ of women. This further contributed to the popular belief that women were unreliable and erratic, and could not be seen as equal to men.

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GOOD WIFE A ALWAYS KNOWS HER PLACE. Woman’s Own, October 1950.

1930–1969

This period, which encompassed the Great Depression, Second World War, Civil Rights Movement and the beginnings of the Cold War, was a time of great social and political upheaval, where the status quo was disrupted. In order to maintain a sense of normalcy in what was a very tumultuous time, women’s magazines relied heavily on traditional ideas of femininity, portraying the ‘home’ as the safest place for a woman to be. They reverted back to language that is now seen as anti-feminist, claiming that a woman’s sole purpose in life was to serve her husband. Society periodicals lost ground after World War I to those catering to the so-called ‘new poor’ and ‘new rich’. Publications that appealed to mass audiences proved to be less alienating and much more popular. Weeklies such as Woman’s Own (1932), Woman’s Illustrated (1936), and, above all, Woman (1937), sold

in high numbers. Throughout the Thirties, rather than today’s lone cover girl, the front page often showed pictures of married couples. Such magazines were seen as ‘trade-papers’ for homemakers, helping women in the running of their homes. During WWII, when the world changed beyond recognition, magazines went from being a folly, however helpful, to being a true friend to women. The challenges facing women were hard and the government used magazines as a way of communicating with the ever-more important home front. They gave practical advice on how to cope with shortages and rations, as well as coping with husbands serving abroad for long periods. Just as they had disappeared off to war, men also disappeared from the front covers. The ‘cover girl’ emerged, and she has remained a steadfast feature of women’s magazines ever since. Magazines held their currency through the Fifties,

A Woman’s Place

1930–1969

“ MANHATING— SOMETIMES YOU CAN’T HELP IT!” She, September 1964.

where new affluence and emerging consumerism aided sales of magazines. Covers stuck, visually, to a tried-and-tested formula, and also started to ‘sell’ themselves on newsstands by using bright colours and arresting headlines. The development of a mass-market meant there was a ‘one-size fits-all’ approach. As long as a women’s magazine ticked certain boxes, it would sell copies. The bond between these feminine publications and advertising companies strengethened, as women were deemed to be the greatest buyers of consumer goods. Magazines began to be distributed through supermarkets rather than bookshops or newsagents. One of the first and most successful was Family Circle (1932). The trend toward youthful markets was indicated by She (1955), broad and robust in outlook; Honey (1960); Annabel (1966), for

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younger married women in particular; and Nova (1965), which was branded “The new kind of magazine for a new kind of woman”. Its covers were highly stylised and proclaimed that Nova was a magazine that did things “the 1965 way”. Despite publications emerging that appealed to a liberal demographic, established women’s magazines continued to imply that maintaining a well-run home was the best way for a woman to keep her husband happy. Magazines aired the frustrations of middle-class housewives, but didn’t rock the boat. In an attempt to hold onto a sense of stability in unstable times, women were firmly situated in the home.

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M AKE DINNERS HE S SURE TO LOVE YOU FOR. Good Housekeeping, February 1970.

1970–1989

The women’s magazines of the 1970s and 1980s reflected the changing culture into which they were published. During this short period, magazines finally began to move away from the traditional image of womanhood portrayed by their predecessors. The place of women in society had shifted dramatically due to the liberated 1960s, and many women wanted independence. To reflect this, magazines captured the problems and situations encountered by the working women of the late 20th century. This pivot to a different style of publishing lended itself to quite a few luxuriant flops. Working Woman, for instance, was an imported American title that lasted for three brief years in the mid-1980s. The magazine had a kind of fatal fissure running through it. On page after page, purposeful-looking women in business suits explained how they had got to the top

in the corporate world. These articles were interspersed with pieces on how to find a mascara that would take you from the boardroom to the bedroom. As we know now, women who bustle around with briefcases read the Economist by day and switch to Vogue in the bath. They don’t need a hybrid that tries to do both. By the late 1980s scores of political and literary magazines of broadly feminist sympathies had been established, one of the most prominent being Ms. (1972), a nonprofit magazine with a circulation of about 500,000. It remains in print to this day. The concept of women’s liberation became less taboo, and began to enter the realm of popular magazines. A 1978 Cosmopolitan quiz entitled “How Liberated Are You?”, for example, includes questions both quaint— “Is it right that more men than women go to university?” —and bang up-to-date— “Do you agree that women are expected to juggle too many roles?”

A Woman’s Place

1970–1989

“ SHOULD YOUR HUSBAND SHARE YOUR PAYCHECK?” Woman, November 1977.

Despite this, conservative women’s magazines continued to maintain their popularity, particularly amongst older audiences. Throughout the Seventies, Family Circle consistently outsold the more feminist-leaning Cosmopolitan (1886) and outspoken feminist publication Spare Rib (1972). With advice on maintaining a comfortable home for your husband and children, it was more akin to the magazines of the 1950s than its contemporaries. The contrast between feminist and conservative language plays out even on the same front covers, with stories on keeping your husband happy juxtaposed against advice for the modern working woman. It seems these magazines had no problem contradicting themselves, as long as it meant appealing to the largest amount of women at once. Magazine articles centred around the problems

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faced by women in industry. Money advice and tales of financial woes played a huge part, as more women were navigating the working world than ever before. Tips on how to juggle work while raising children often appeared, and themes on organising childcare and creating a work-life balance were common. Some more daring women’s magazines even began to question the values of marriage at young ages, and the place of women in society. Magazines served as useful guides, helping young women navigate new societal norms. Many publications have since become iconic symbols of the second-wave feminist movement, most notably Spare Rib. They challenged stereotypes and supported collective solutions. No longer held back by patriarchal norms, magazines began to reflect women’s true feelings.

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OSE 5LBS IN L 5 DAYS WITH OUR NEW BLITZ DIET Madamoiselle, May 2000.

1990–2009

Another huge shift in the format of women’s magazines took place in the 20 years from 1990 to 2010. Moving away from cover girls that were seen as ‘ordinary’ women, they began to focus on the awesome selling power of a celebrity face. Top-selling women’s magazines; such as Glamour and Grazia always had a famous face on the front cover. Certain celebrity faces shift more copies than others, for example Kate Moss shifted more copies of Vogue than, say, Natalie Portman. Since the Nineties, the cover formula for selling women’s magazines on newsstands hasn’t changed very much. Along with plastering celebrity faces on their front covers, magazines in this era began to turn to rhetoric that was much more toxic than before. The emphasis moved away from family and the home, and instead shifted towards diet and body image.

Huge pressure was put on readers to achieve the perfect figure, and they were often shamed for being overweight, unstylish and even modest. Researchers have investigated the relationship between magazine use and body satisfaction, and concluded that women who were exposed to media images of thin models were more dissatisfied with their bodies than those who weren’t. The pressure of societal standards led to eating dysfunction and crippling self-esteem issues. The ‘Thin Ideal’ was perpetuated by women’s magazines, and had an extremely negative effect on their readers, who were largely young and impressionable. Obsession with fashion, celebrity, and fitness lowered women’s satisfaction with their own bodies, as they compared themselves to an unattainable ideal. Also in this era, the concept of photoshopping images of women arose in earnest. Models’ faces and bodies were digitally manipulated

A Woman’s Place

1990–2009

“ BABIES— ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT ONE NOW?” Cosmopolitan, May 1990.

to make them align with the beauty standard; giving them perfect skin, hair and silhouettes. Of course, because this technology was still relatively new, most consumers had no idea what they were seeing was an enhanced version of reality, and held themselves up against this impossible standard. Despite these drawbacks, women’s magazines retained their popularity. 35% of women were loyal readers who bought the same magazine every month. Magazines provided an imagined community of other women readers who shared common experiences and interests. A wider acceptance of individualism and liberal feminism gave rise to a ‘selfism’ discourse; with magazines often asserting a woman’s right to ‘me-time’ and self-indulgence. Many of the battles for equality in the workplace and in the home were seen to have been won, and

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attention turned to the women who juggled their traditional roles as mothers and home-makers while also working. They needed to unwind from the demands of their day-to-day responsibilities, both in the home and in the workplace. The right to individual space has always been a problematic concept for women, and the notion of ‘me-time’ conflicted with the dominant idea of femininity. This is because they often have to reconcile their right to space and time out from others with the demands of family life. They have to overcome the guilt associated with putting themselves before others. Magazines challenged the traditional view that women are conditioned to be nurturing and familial, whereas men are conditioned to be independent and autonomous. They captured cultural change in articles on women acting ‘rebelliously’, or choosing to focus on career rather than marriage or motherhood.

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OULD YOU W GO TOPLESS TO GET A PAY RISE Cosmopolitan, November 2013.

1990–2009

Over the last 15 years, women’s magazines have become more progressive than ever— yet they’re closing down at an unprecedented rate. It seems that print is officially dead, and the inexorable ‘pivot to digital’ is now complete. Social media has had a huge effect on all types of print media, and women’s magazines are no different. Every few months another titan falls, with print editions of Marie Claire, More!, Look and InStyle being phased out. Glamour came to the same conclusion reached by so many other magazines— after 80 years, it went digital in 2017 and stopped publishing its glossy monthly in 2019. Across the board, giants of women’s publishing are facing massive drops in consumers. Cosmopolitan saw its print circulation drop by a third in the last half of 2018, while weeklies Woman and Woman’s Own were down 20% and 19% respectively. Now magazine dropped by 43%. Seventeen, once a lifestyle

primer for schoolgirls everywhere, now will publish only special issues, and Redbook, one of the ‘Seven Sisters’ of magazines for suburban housewives, is high-tailing it to the Web as well. The demise of women’s magazines would once have been met with jubilation by some feminists. Although they were a safe space for women in popular media, they were often a toxic one— the circling of celebrity cellulite and the reinforcement of white beauty standards only further entrenched misogyny. However, this is not a representation of women’s magazines today. The closure of Teen Vogue’s print publication was met with widespread outrage, as the magazine had matured into a politically engaged tome for young readers who still cared about fashion, but also had concerns over the climate crisis and rise of far-right ideology in the West. Although glossy

A Woman’s Place

2010–Present

“ OWN YOUR BODY, YOUR HAPPINESS, YOUR FUTURE.” Glamour, February 2017.

magazines are the worst affected, online women’s publications have not escaped – the Debrief and the Pool suffered the same fate. The current purge is happening at a time when women’s magazines are less sexist and more progressive than they ever have been. Last year’s September issues made history with virtually every one featuring a black cover star. Some may argue that change came too late, but even magazines that only ever had a feminist agenda haven’t been immune. Quick-witted British iterations such as Standard Issue and Motherland have also folded. What is happening to women’s magazines is simply a reflection of an industry-wide problem. In a media landscape that tends to characterise interests generally associated with men as “news” while women’s issues are often shoehorned into “lifestyle” pullouts and supple-

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ments, their absence is keenly felt and their presence still very much needed. The magazine industry as a whole has been belt-tightening thanks to a print advertising famine, eliminating costly paper copies while trying to establish themselves on the Internet. Yet women’s publications somehow feel much more endangered than the rest, especially now that even the woke online upstarts that once aimed to replace them — sites such as the Hairpin, Rookie and the Toast — are themselves turning off the lights. These publications helped mold tastes, define mainstream femininity and give talented female journalists a leg up into highflying media careers.

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A Woman’s Place

In Summary

For generations, women’s magazines filled a cultural niche, adopting the voice of a concerned big sister to chide women into keeping up with the current hemlines — but also the current headlines. The glossies were relatable, visually pleasing and useful all at once — a tactile, addictive habit. You could tear out the page and say, “This is the haircut I’m going to bring to my hairdresser.” There was just something about a glossy, to read and engage with. Even if you didn’t subscribe, dog-eared copies of Marie Claire and Good Housekeeping and Seventeen found their way to you — at the doctor’s office, at a friend’s apartment, in a teacher’s staffroom.

— the girlfriend-style advice, the gospels of orgasms and equal pay, the reminders to always be dieting — can now be found many places online, from #fitspo posts on Instagram to junior-feminist sites such as Jezebel, which has elbowed in on coverage of pop culture, #MeToo and the workplace. Makeup bloggers and YouTube influencers now dictate the ‘Next Big Lipstick Colour’ and how to get that no-makeup makeup look. Culinary sites such as Food52 have cornered what the lady rags used to call “cookery,” with none of the gendered notions about who does the cooking. And low-stakes, cheerfully unscientific personality quizzes? Now, there’s BuzzFeed for that.

In their heyday, these publications also offered a pipeline for the nation’s best female journalists. Joan Didion worked for Vogue in the 1960s. Susan Orlean and Gloria Steinem wrote for Glamour. Good Housekeeping published Betty Friedan. These publications gave us iconic editors such as Anna Wintour.

Of course, these magazines can still be found online under the same old banners of yore, as legacy titles try to find new life as digital products. Many have found success in this new venture. Cosmopolitan’s website, for example, lures more than 19 million unique visitors a month, while Glamour can attract more than 6 million. The old brands are drawing YouTube followers with original videos, and with the viral success of pieces such as Teen Vogue’s gaslighting essay, embracing anew the brisk, women-focused political reporting that made them must-reads a couple decades ago. Their mystique certainly lives on, but some fear for what will be lost in the transition. The old magazines had fact-checkers on staff; a team of people whose job was to verify every detail in the magazine. Everything was coming from legitimate sources. Even if they can still afford that level of rigor, the time when the glossies were one of the most influential resources in women’s lives seems to have come and gone. Titles in the women’s sector — Better Homes and Gardens vs. Good Housekeeping, say — have always struggled to differentiate from each other. There’s a lot of overlap. In a different media climate, maybe they could survive, but it seems likely that this one won’t support it.

“ Thumb through old issues, and you can see how women’s roles were not only changing, but how magazines were driving the change.” These magazines battled a sense that they were somehow lesser, with people not taking them seriously because they were meant for women.Many critics believe women’s magazines clung far too long to pummeling readers with messages that their bodies were less than desirable and that their boyfriend’s eyes probably wandered and that only products could fill the void. The ‘Westernised’ ideal of beauty was upheld by these magazines. Whether they were discussing recipes or selling a bathing suit, there was the same kind of woman that most couldn’t truly identify with. Many believe that magazines’ insistence on the status quo, even as womanhood changed dramatically, led them to irrelevance. In an era of radical body acceptance and umpteenth-wave feminism, women don’t want to read 2,500 articles a year on how to lose 10 pounds or get rid of their love handles. It’s reductive and superficial. What women’s magazines once delivered to readers from Birmingham to New York to Mumbai

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DEATH

As we enter the third decade of the 21st century, our outlook on how a household should run has changed entirely. No longer stuck in a stuffy cycle of heteronormativity, our families, our relationships and even our homes themselves are now a world away from their Victorian predecessors. Our final section discusses the impact Household Management has had on the world today. How has a woman’s place in the home changed since the book’s publication? Does a 160-year-old book bear any relevance in our modern world?

HOW INDEBTED WE ARE TO THE FOR 14-HOUR WIVES OF .

V / Death of the Domestic Goddess

LAVANYA RAMANATHAN

MODERN FAMILIES WORKING MOTHERS AND STAY-AT-HOME FATHERS

The domestic landscape has changed hugely since Mrs. Beeton’s time. For example, in 1860, women accounted for just 16% of the total workforce in the United States. By early 2020, women made up over half of American workers. In 2017, 41% of mothers were the sole or primary breadwinners in their family, meaning that a growing number of married women are currently out-earning their husbands. It is clear that Millennial women are an empowered generation, yet they’re more traditional than you’d think. The number of women who stay at home specifically to care for family has dropped from 86% in 1989 down to 78%. As they raise children, millennial women are reclaiming what it means to be a ‘stay-at-home mom’. Thanks to technology, they don’t have to miss out on jobs while doing so. More millennial women are working from home compared to their mothers and the women who came before. You may think this means that modern women are happy with ‘ye olde’ patriarchal practices, but that’s not the whole story— these women, unhappy with the status quo, are changing the system in whatever way they can. Technology’s evolution allows modern women the empowerment of merging tradition with innovation. Millennial women can have the best of both worlds; raising their babies as they simultaneously work from home. While a lack of employment opportunities also contributes to the growing number of women staying at home with their children, many remain in the home because they want to. Most mothers will agree that caring for their loved ones is the most fulfilling job in the world. A desire for family flexibility remains the top reason why 90% of mothers work from home. Women are mothers in the home, but in a way that the patriarchy never dared dream. They are providing for their families without missing their child’s first step, working themselves into an early grave or never seeing their partners. The lack of proper maternity leave, the rising costs of childcare, unsupportive family policies and the ever-present wage gap has led millennial women to take their futures by the reins and preside over their homes, making money and a fulfilling life for their families as best as they’re able to. For many, staying at home is both a desire and a convenience, but it’s not about having your cake and eating it, too.

A Woman’s Place

Modern Families

Taking care of a child is a full-time job and these women add even more work on top of it. They are rejecting the status-quo of ‘mother equals homemaker.’ While it’s unclear how many men have made the transition to full-time parenthood during the pandemic, the long-term trends show a rise of stayat-home fathers. In 2016, dads made up 17% of all stay-at-home parents in the U.S. They reported spending an average of eight hours a week on childcare, about triple the time they spent in 1965. And fathers reported putting in about 10 hours a week on household chores, up from four hours in 1965. By comparison, mothers in 2016 spent an average of about 14 hours a week on childcare and 18 hours a week on housework. While men’s work in the home still pales in comparison to how many hours women are putting in, the culture has certainly shifted. Fathers are doing more domestic chores for several reasons, including women’s increasing advancement at work and in education, as well shifts in economic trends. In 2010, following the Great Recession, a high of 2.2 million fathers were stay-at-home dads in the U.S; likely due to an increase in unemployment. While the pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on women, men have not been exempt from experiencing job loss over the past year. Between February 2020 and April 2021, nearly 1.6 million men left the workforce. A rising number of fathers are also choosing to stay home for the sole reason of caring for their families. In 2016, 24% of stay-at-home dads said looking their family was the main reason they were at home, as opposed to other factors like unemployment. That’s up from just 4% in 1989. As a result, dads are opting to stay home to avoid the high cost of childcare. As the number of stay-athome dads starts to increase, experts are hopeful that a shift in expectations for each gender will take place. While women still carry the brunt of childcare and household responsibility, having more active dads in the home can allow more women to be active in the workplace. To help foster greater gender equality, policies need to be passed that allow employers to provide parents with equal opportunities to support their families. In Sweden, where each parent is entitled to 240 days of paid parental leave, government leaders passed a ‘use it or lose it’ policy, which made the previously share-

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able leave non-transferable between parents. This pushed men out of the workforce and into the home. The initiative proves that structural policy change can lead to a cultural shifts, whereby it has become more acceptable for men to be stay-at-home dads. Yet what does this mean for traditional tomes like Household Management? Despite our shifts in palette and culinary preferences, in theory her vast choices of recipes in can still serve as being useful to readers throughout time. However, it is the purpose and intended audience of the book that has aged poorly. Its focus on women only is outdated, and its view on their relegation to lives of domestic servitude would also be shunned today. Household Management has been printed in over 60 editions, with updated recipes and household tips, yet its old-fashioned idea of a woman’s role in society has constantly been overlooked. It is surprising however, that so much of Beeton’s advice still serves a purpose. For instance, the last few chapters include useful advice on preserving flowers, remedies for illnesses, and guidance for childrearing. Not including her instruction of how to bleed oneself for medical emergencies, which is unlikely to be advised by today’s doctors, some of her home remedies have been proven in recent times to have a positive effect on the receiver’s health. Her advice on relieving teething in babies, for example, is still used today. Beeton’s Book of Household Management also holds value in terms of its historical significance. It is an important cultural touchstone, particularly in terms of feminine publishing history. Exuding serenity and confidence despite her young age, Beeton captured the concerns of women all over the British Empire. These women were born into an age that was changing constantly, where every day brought a new invention or new way of thinking. Very little resembled the society of their parents or grandparents; they were on their own, navigating adulthood in a world like nothing before. Household Management stands as a record life for Victorian housewives; as it includes advice and recipes for women on all points of social scale. From learning how to work with staff and equipment to negotiating wages and legal memoranda, Beeton’s advice captured a society bursting with new money, new foods and even new classes. Isabella and Samuel Beeton are also inspiring suc-

V / Death of the Domestic Goddess

cess stories as entrepreneurs. Their appeal to an untapped market, upon which they built one of the most powerful brands in Britain, was unheard of during Victorian times. Their publications spoke to young women, giving them a companion upon which they could rely. Recognising the boom that was occuring in female literacy (60% of British women could read in 1860, more than any previous time in history), they took full advantage of the new market and laid the tracks for women’s magazines of the future. They aided the desperation of inexperienced girls who need a guide to daily life. In an age where anything was possible, yet everything could be taken away in the blink of an eye, they craved stability. Beeton’s matronly, authoritative tone immortalised her as a maternal figure for generations of housewives, and her inclusion of empowering language stood apart from any other publication of its time. Young women weren’t listened to or catered for in Victorian times, but Isabella Beeton unashamedly stood out as a voice for women and their essential work.

“ There are none which take a higher rank than those who perform household duties.” Combining apsects of modernity with down-toearth practicality, Isabella Beeton shaped our widely accepted idea of the ‘perfect housewife’; a woman who is fully in charge of her domestic domain. Household Management proposed a life of lists and order as the blueprint for how to be a successful homemaker and housewife. The importance of creating a perfect home was a theme that ran through female discourse for more than a century after the book’s publication, proving the impact (for better or worse) of Beeton’s work. A fantastically modern woman, she shaped the appetites and habits of the Empire long after her death. Her unfortunate early demise meant that her life story and body of work have been lamentably under-documented, yet her legacy is difficult to overstate. An enigma of women’s history, she has come to be seen as a symbol of female ambition and enterprise. Isabella Beeton’s infamous book created a sisterhood that still prospers today; in the form of female publications the world over. Her legacy is one that continues to be felt centuries on.

A Woman’s Place

Modern Families

Gender Distribution of Household Duties (%) YouGov November 2019 study of 1,314 British adults living with a partner

Women

Men

Laundry

Bathroom

Dusting

Polishing

Oven Cleaning

Bed Making

Mopping

Cooking

Food Shopping

Hoovering

Washing Up

Gardening

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I HAVE STRIVEN TO MAKE MY WORK MORE THAN JUST A COO

OK.

Modern Families

TO OUR READERS

We hope this issue first of A Woman’s Place has opened your eyes to the wonderful world of both Isabella Beeton, and the history of female publishing in general. A spirit and a symbol, Beeton inspired generations of women to be proud of the work they did in the home. She was a true pioneer of women’s publishing. We have also striven to show the impact of women’s magazines on popular culture in the past 150 years. These publications were unique in that they focused on women as a worthwhile audience, and despite assumptions that they were ‘lesser’ for their feminine appeal, they continued to persevere. Magazines provided a sense of sisterhood for women all over the world, and also opened up a discourse around women’s roles in society. Despite this, at times they also fed into harmful patriarchal norms, and often held up conservative beliefs. However, women’s magazines still serve as artefacts that capture the huge changes in women’s history that took place since Our next edition will centre on other titans of Victorian literature; the Bronte sisters. Their outstanding works of fiction appealed to the masses, and created a worldwide appetite for female stories. A Woman’s Place Issue No. 2 will be on newstands and all digital platforms in January 2023.

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Modern Families

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A History of Publishing. Encyclopedia Britannica, 2020. Bad Language for Nasty Women. Chi Luu, 2016. Beeton and the Art of Household Management. British Library, 2014. Birthing Terrible Beauties: Women’s Magazines. Economic and Political Weekly, 1991. Cover Girls: 300 Years of Women’s Magazines. Esther Walker, The Independent, 2008. Man, I Feel Like a 1960s Woman. Rosita Boland, the Irish Times, 2014. Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management. Oxford University Press, 2000. Beeton’s Challenge to Traditional Domesticity. Chisato Yamada, 2010. Perceived Reality of Women in Magazines. Marquette University, 2011. The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine. Victorian Periodical Review, 2008. The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs. Beeton. HarperCollins, 2005. Women, Men, and Type of Talk. Language in Society, 1996. Women’s Magazines: An Interdisciplinary Lens. American Periodicals, 2015. Women’s Magazines Are Dying Lavanya Ramanathan, the Washington Post, 2019. Zeal and Softness: Women’s Magazines Down the Ages. Kathryn Hughes, the Guardian, December 2008. 150 Years of Women’s Magazines. University of Cambridge, 2017.

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