Magazines for Women
Women’s magazines had a dual aim in the period, providing fiction and other forms of entertainment reading and offering practical advice about childcare, cookery and household management. They also nurtured skills including knitting and dressmaking, offering designs for clothes for children and themselves. Pictorial covers presented both the twin aims, through precise wording of contents matched by images offering more attractive ways of living. Fiction combined image and text in advancing or delaying events, and often making moral points. Woman’s Life in the 1920s matched these aims with illustrated fiction mingling escape and guidance: it also included occasional comic strips for young children. The more expensive Woman and Home attracted readers from a slightly higher income bracket but covered similar material. Launched in 1932, Woman’s Own used the newer forms of printing and design, reflecting greater confidence of its readers and newer material including film reviews.