Good Housekeeping is a women's
magazineMagazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
owned by the
Hearst CorporationThe Hearst Corporation is an American media conglomerate based in the Hearst Tower, Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. Founded by William Randolph Hearst as an owner of newspapers, the company's holdings now include a wide variety of media...
, featuring articles about women's interests, product testing by The Good Housekeeping Institute, recipes, diet, health as well as literary articles. It is well known for the "Good Housekeeping Seal," popularly known as the "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval."
The magazine was founded May 2, 1885 by Clark W. Bryan in
Holyoke, MassachusettsHolyoke is a city in Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States, between the western bank of the Connecticut River and the Mount Tom Range of mountains. As of the 2010 Census, the city had a population of 39,880...
.
The magazine achieved a circulation of 300,000 by 1911, at which time it was bought by the
Hearst CorporationThe Hearst Corporation is an American media conglomerate based in the Hearst Tower, Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. Founded by William Randolph Hearst as an owner of newspapers, the company's holdings now include a wide variety of media...
. In 1966 it reached 5,500,000 readers.
Good Housekeeping is one of the "
Seven SistersThe Seven Sisters are a group of magazines which have traditionally been aimed at married women who are homemakers with husbands and children, rather than single and working women. The name is derived from the Greek myth of the "seven sisters", also known as the Pleiades...
", a group of women's service magazines.
The Hearst Corporation created a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
edition along the same lines in 1922.
Famous writers who have contributed to the magazine include Somerset Maugham,
Edwin MarkhamCharles Edwin Anson Markham was an American poet. From 1923 to 1931 he was Poet Laureate of Oregon.-Life:Edwin Markham was born in Oregon City, Oregon and was the youngest of 10 children; his parents divorced shortly after his birth...
,
Edna St. Vincent MillayEdna St. Vincent Millay was an American lyrical poet, playwright and feminist. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and was known for her activism and her many love affairs. She used the pseudonym Nancy Boyd for her prose work...
,
Frances Parkinson KeyesFrances Parkinson Keyes was an American author, and a convert to Roman Catholicism, whose works frequently featured Catholic themes and beliefs. Her last name rhymes with "skies," not "keys."-Life and career:...
,
A. J. CroninArchibald Joseph Cronin was a Scottish physician and novelist. His best-known works are Hatter's Castle, The Stars Look Down, The Citadel, The Keys of the Kingdom and The Green Years, all of which were adapted to film. He also created the Dr...
,
Virginia WoolfAdeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
, and
Evelyn WaughArthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer...
.
Good Housekeeping Research Institute
In 1900, the "Experiment Station", the predecessor to the Good Housekeeping Research Institute (GHRI), was founded.
The formal opening of the headquarters of GHRI - the Model Kitchen, Testing Station for Household Devices, and Domestic Science Laboratory - occurred in January 1910.
In 1909, the magazine established the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. Products advertised in the magazine that bear the seal are tested by GHRI and are backed by a two-year limited warranty. About 5,000 products have been given the seal.
In April 1912, a year after Hearst bought the magazine,
Harvey W. WileyHarvey Washington Wiley was a noted chemist best known for his leadership in the passage of the landmark Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 and his subsequent work at the Good Housekeeping Institute laboratories. He was the first commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration...
, the first commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (1907-1912), became head of GHRI.
Social activism
The magazine advocated for pure food as early as 1905, helping to lead to the 1906
Pure Food and Drug ActThe Pure Food and Drug Act of June 30, 1906, is a United States federal law that provided federal inspection of meat products and forbade the manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated food products and poisonous patent medicines...
. It prohibited the advertising of
cigaretteA cigarette is a small roll of finely cut tobacco leaves wrapped in a cylinder of thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end and allowed to smoulder; its smoke is inhaled from the other end, which is held in or to the mouth and in some cases a cigarette holder may be used as well...
s in the magazine in 1952, 12 years before the
Surgeon GeneralThe Surgeon General of the United States is the operational head of the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and thus the leading spokesperson on matters of public health in the federal government...
's warning labels were required on cigarette packs. During the 1930s, it endorsed the
Ludlow AmendmentThe Ludlow Amendment was a proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States which called for a national referendum on any declaration of war by Congress, except in cases when the United States had been attacked first. Representative Louis Ludlow introduced the amendment several times...
, which sought to require that any
declaration of warA declaration of war is a formal act by which one nation goes to war against another. The declaration is a performative speech act by an authorized party of a national government in order to create a state of war between two or more states.The legality of who is competent to declare war varies...
, except in the event of an invasion, be ratified by a direct vote of the citizenry.
Editors
- Clark W. Bryan (1885-1898)
- James Eaton Tower (1899-1913)
- William Frederick Bigelow (1913-1942)
- Herbert Raymond Mayes (1942-1958)
- Wade Hampton Nichols, Jr. (1959-1975)
- John Mack Carter (1975-1994)
- Ellen Levine (1994-2006)
- Rosemary Ellis (2006-present)
External links
Official websites:
From the
Library of CongressThe Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
: