Here is a page from a 1937 Marie-Claire I have on hand. (It shows the many layers of clothing a woman wore 1900. In this case it is a wedding kit and weighs 4 kilos.) In the letters, the Nicholson women sometimes mention now much they weigh. It always seems a little heavy, because they are weighing themselves out in public somewhere and are fully clothed. As 70 years have passed, this magazine is in the public domain.Marie-Claire, a French magazine founded in 1937 by Jean Prouvost and Marcelle Auclair, could be called the first modern women's magazine. I wrote about it here www.tighsolas.ca/page218.html.
For my tighsolas website I purchased a few era fashion magazines on eBay. Very expensive so I only got a few. One Delineator, from 1909, a Pictorial Review from 1910 and a few Ladies' Home Journals, oh and a Harper's Bazar, too.
They make for an interesting study. I tried to read the Delineator a few nights ago. The fashion pages were so technical, I hardly understood what I was reading. But the other articles, I easily understood. They were well-written social commentary. One article was on the American Impressionist Mary Cassat. I had no idea that Americans knew about French Impressionism in 1910. Here's an article by author Gertrude Atherton called The Present Unrest Among Women, which I have reprinted on my website www.tighsolas.ca/page245.html
that is typical of the political tone the fashion magazine took.
To my eyes, the Delineator seems aimed at richer women. The dresses inside are fairly fancy and the articles are mostly about women's issues and the many social problems out there - which were considered a woman's issue. But a scholarly citation I found online about the magazine says it had a circulation of 480,000 in 1900, to over a million in 1920, and double that again in the 30's. Then it went out of business and fell into total obscurity. Hmm. I guess that's why feminism had to be 're-invented' for us Boomers in the 60's. Tsk.
The Ladies' Home Journal was clearly for the middle-class. The Nicholsons subscribed in the early 1900's and Edith referred to it in letters. "The Ladies' Home Journal says curls are in this season." This magazine was not devoted social issues. In fact, it is very conservative in its editorial views. But it does have lots and lots of advertisements. This magazine is devoted to consumerism - and it survived and thrived in the 20th century, with its symbiotic relationship with J. Walter Thompson advertising.
And then there's Marie-Claire, a magazine still around today. Now, in 1937, Auclair visited the US to check out their magazines. She wanted to publish a magazine that combined American style features with French fashion sense. The issues I have from 1937 to 40, when Paris was invaded and occupied, have a very familiar feel. How to shape your lips. Exercises that seem a lot like Pilates. Gossipy articles about movie stars. Fashion tips for ordinary women, high fashion fantasy features and an advice column. Also some stories by very famous French authors. Auclair was an intellectual, married to an intellectual. They hobknobbed with the likes of Sartre and de Beauvoir. Yet she wrote these frothy beauty columns. Hmmm.
