Consumer magazines aimed at a female readership are recognized as critical primary sources through which to interpret multiple aspects of 19th and 20th-century history and culture. Archival issues, however, have previously been difficult to locate and navigate.
Women’s Magazine Archive 1 provides access to the complete archives of the foremost titles of this type, including Good Housekeeping and Ladies’ Home Journal, which serve as canonical records of evolving assumptions about gender roles and cultural mores. Other titles here focus on narrower topics but deliver valuable source content for specific research areas. Parents, for example, is of particular relevance for research in the fields of children’s education, psychology, and health, as well as reflecting broader social historical trends.
Women’s Magazine Archive 2 features several of the most prominent, high-circulating, and long-running publications in this area, such as Woman’s Day and Town & Country. Collection 2 also, however, complements the first collection by including some titles focusing on more specific audiences and themes. Cosmopolitan and Seventeen, for example, are oriented towards a younger readership, while black women’s interests are represented by Essence. Women’s International Network News differs in being a more political, activist title, with an international dimension.
Women’s Magazine Archive 3 (Coming Q3 2020!) adds valuable international perspectives with five major UK plus one Canadian lifestyle and fashion titles including the UK editions of premier titles – Good Housekeeping and Cosmopolitan – among other major brands originating in the UK (Prima, She, Company) and Canada (Flare).
Topics covered these collections include family life, home economics, health, careers, fashion, culture, and many more; this material serves multiple research areas, from gender studies, social history, and the arts, through to education, politics, and marketing/media history.
The magazines are all scanned from cover to cover in high-resolution color, ensuring that the original print artefacts are faithfully reproduced and that valuable non-article items, such as advertisements, are included. Detailed article-level indexing, with document feature flags, enables efficient searching and navigation of this content.
Collection 1 titles:
Collection 2 titles:
Collection 3 titles (Coming Q3 2021!):
Most of these titles were published monthly and the length of back file ranges from 29 years to 123 years; each provides a rich seam of material attesting to changing social, historical and cultural trends over a period of many decades.
Unique digital availability of deep back files of consumer women’s magazine titles.
Full color digitization to maximize the rich visual content of this material.
Rich material attesting to changing social, historical and cultural trends over a period of many decades.
Custom article-level document type/feature limiters enable users quickly to access the material most relevant to their research.
Take research deeper with complementary resources from ProQuest, such as The Vogue Archive, Harper’s Bazaar, Women’s Wear Daily Archive, The Gerritsen Collection of Women’s History, History Vault including Women’s Rights Collections, and more.
Multiple research areas covered: gender studies, social history, and the arts, education, politics and marketing/media history. More specifics topics include: Advertising, family life/parenting, health, fitness and food, politics, literature and arts, reviews and features on performing arts, interior design, architecture and horticulture, fashion and beauty, careers and women’s rights and legal status.
Libraries have seldom retained backfile volumes for this type of content.