Good Housekeeping

History and profile

On May 2, 1885, Clark W. Bryan founded Good Housekeeping in Holyoke, Massachusetts, as a fortnightly magazine. The magazine became a monthly publication in 1891.

The magazine achieved a circulation of 300,000 by 1911, at which time it was bought by the Hearst Corporation. It topped one million in the mid-1920s, and continued to rise, even during the Great Depression and its aftermath. In 1938, a year in which the magazine advertising dropped 22 percent, Good Housekeeping showed an operating profit of $2,583,202, more than three times the profit of Hearst's other eight magazines combined, and probably the most profitable monthly of its time. Circulation topped 2,500,000 in 1943, 3,500,000 in the mid-1950s, 5,000,000 in 1962, and 5,500,000 per month in 1966. 1959 profits were more than $11 million.

Good Housekeeping was one of the "Seven Sisters", a group of women's service magazines, and is one of the three of them still published in print.

In 1922, the Hearst Corporation created a British edition along the same lines, named British Good Housekeeping.

Famous writers who have contributed to the magazine include A. J. Cronin, Robert Graves, Betty Friedan, Clara Savage Littledale, Edwin Markham, Somerset Maugham, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Evelyn Waugh, and Virginia Woolf. Other contributors include advice columnists, chefs, and politicians.

Good Housekeeping Institute==

In 1900, the "Experiment Station", the predecessor to the Good Housekeeping Research Institute (GHRI), now known as the Good Housekeeping Institute, was founded. In 1902, the magazine was calling this "An Inflexible Contract Between the Publisher and Each Subscriber". The formal opening of the headquarters of the GH Institute – 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. Products advertised in the magazine that bear the GH Seal are tested by GH Institute experts 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. Wiley, the first commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (1907–1912), became head of the Good Housekeeping Research Institute and a contributing editor whose "Question Box" feature ran for decades. Beginning with a "Beauty Clinic" in 1932, departments were added to the Institute, including a "Baby's Center", "Foods and Cookery", and a "Needlework Room". Some functioned as testing laboratories, while others were designed to produce editorial copy.

In 1924, the British Good Housekeeping magazine set up its own Good Housekeeping Institute at 49 Wellington Street in Covent Garden, London. Its first director was Dorothy Cottington Taylor who ran the "a highly organised laboratory for testing and investigating every kind of household appliance, method, and recipe" for sixteen years.

After the passage of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Rexford Tugwell sought to promote a government grading system. The Hearst Corporation opposed the policy in spirit, and began publishing a monthly tabloid attacking federal oversight. In 1939, the Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint against Good Housekeeping for "misleading and deceptive" guarantees including the Seal, and "exaggerated and false" claims in its advertisements. The publisher fought the proceedings for two years, during which time competing editors from the Ladies Home Journal and McCall's testified against Good Housekeeping. The FTC's ultimate ruling was against the magazine, forcing it to remove some claims and phraseology from its ad pages. The words "Tested and Approved" were dropped from the Seal. But the magazine's popularity was unaffected, steadily rising in circulation and profitability. In 1962, the wording of the Seal was changed to a guarantee of "Product or Performance", while dropping its endorsement of rhetorical promises made by the advertisers. In its varying forms, the Seal became inextricably associated with the magazine, and many others (e.g., McCall's, Parents, and Better Homes and Gardens) mimicked the practice.

International editions

Good Housekeeping began to be published in the United Kingdom in 1922. William Randolph Hearst appointed Alice Maud Head initially as assistant editor. Head rose to be the managing director, as well as purportedly being the highest paid woman in Europe. As Hearst's deputy, Head would make decisions on his behalf about not just editing, but also buying for him St Donat's Castle, expensive art objects, and three giraffes for his zoo. Head remained head until 1939.

In Latin America, a Spanish version of the magazine, titled Buenhogar, was published in the United States and Latin America by the Editorial América corporation in Mexico from 1961, under license from the Hearst Corporation.

russiaIn Russia, the magazine was published first as Domashny Ochag ("Good Home, or Hearth"), before changing its name to Novy Ochag ("New Home, or Hearth") sometime in July 2022. Published by Independent Media, and described as "a resource for women who take care of their homes, raise children, have successful careers and help others", Novy Ochag recorded a digital readership of 13 million in October 2023.

Good Housekeeping launched two editions in South Africa in 2011, in English as Good Housekeeping and in Afrikaans as Goeie Huishouding. The magazine closed in 2020.

American 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 (2006–2013)
• Jane Francisco (2013–2025)
• Elspeth Velten (2025–present)

References

References

1. (March 7, 2025). "Top 50 magazines in the US: The Atlantic is fastest growing title in second half of 2024". [Press Gazette].
2. Ewoldt, John. (October 4, 2018). "Will anyone unfamiliar with the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval 'get' MOA's new store?". [[Star Tribune]].
3. Belkin, Lisa. (June 15, 1985). "Good Housekeeping's Seal Stamps Its Approval". [[Milwaukee Journal]].
4. (n.d.). "Top 100 U.S. Magazines by Circulation". PSA Research Center.
5. (July 23, 2020). "Good Housekeeping".
6. Ibrahim, Magda. (February 12, 2015). "Magazines ABCs: Women's monthlies led by Good Housekeeping". MediaWeek.
7. ''Printers' Ink'', Vol. 186, March 16, 1939, pg. 16.
8. Mott, Frank Luther. (1968). "A History of American Magazines". Harvard University Press.
9. Hart, Carolyn. (October 24, 2014). "Good Housekeeping Institute: meet the team testing every item in your home". Daily Telegraph.
10. Nugent, Frank S.. (9 March 1940). "THE SCREEN; 'Vigil in the Night,' a Sobersided Drama of Nursing, Opens at the Roxy--'Three Cheers for the Irish'". The New York Times.
11. Davies, Alan. (2018-01-01). "A.J. Cronin". Alma Books.
12. link
13. Carr, Jane Greenway. (April 7, 2016). "Frances Parkinson Keyes (1885–1970)". Virginia Humanities.
14. (September 7, 1937). "Mother of Two Children, She Helped Raise A Million More: Former Newspaper Woman Directs Staff of Experts Who Write Magazine on Child Rearing Read by Five Hundred Thousand Parents". [[Sun Journal (Lewiston, Maine).
15. Delco Times. (August 20, 2021). "'Good Housekeeping' hit the stands May 2". [[Delaware County Daily Times]].
16. (n.d.). "Good Housekeeping, 1910". [[Brown University]] and [[University of Tulsa]].
17. "Good Housekeeping". [[National Postal Museum]], [[Smithsonian Institution]].
18. Salinger, J. D.. (February 1948). "A Girl I Knew". Hearst Communications, Inc..
19. "The 100th Anniversary of the Good Housekeeping Research Institute". Hearst Communications, Inc..
20. Nicholls, Walter. (January 2, 2008). "Surviving the Test of Time: At Good Housekeeping, A Modern Makeover And Old-Fashioned Appeal". Washington Post.
21. (April 26, 1912). "Dr. Wiley's Debut as Editor; He Says He Will Be a Watchdog for the Nation's Housekeepers". The New York Times.
22. B, Lizzie. (2022-05-22). "Dorothy Cottington Taylor (1891-1944)".
23. "Dorothy Daisy Cottington-Taylor (née Gale) - National Portrait Gallery".
24. Ping Shaw. (1999). "Internationalization of the women's magazine industry in Taiwan context, process and influence". Asian Journal of Communication.
25. Pugh, Martin. (2004). "Head, Alice Maud (1886–1981)". Oxford University Press.
26. (3 March 1997). "Editorial Television, S.A. de C.V.".
27. Levine, Felicia. (16 December 1996). "Televisa launching four new magazines for U.S. Hispanics".
28. (25 December 2023). "Independent Media, медиахолдинг. Территория контента, креатива и технологий".
29. (May 2014). "Domashny Ochag in June 2014".
30. (November 2023). "Novy Ochag Sets Another Record".
31. "Hearst Magazines International to Launch Good Housekeeping in South Africa - HEARST".
32. Saxon, Wolfgang. (1 November 1987). [https://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/01/obituaries/herbert-mayes-87-a-former-top-editor-of-magazines-dies.html Herbert Mayes, 87, A Former Top Editor of Magazines, Dies], ''[[The New York Times]]'', p. 52
33. Steigrad, Alexandra. (12 November 2013). "Good Housekeeping Names Jane Francisco; Longtime editor in chief Rosemary Ellis is leaving the publication to "pursue new opportunities"". [[Women's Wear Daily]].
34. "Hearst Magazines Names Elspeth Velten Editor-in-Chief of Good Housekeeping - HEARST".