Periodicals: Better Homes and Gardens

In 1924 a new kind of magazine appeared. Better Homes and Gardens grew out of Successful Farming, when founder and publisher E. T. Meredith decided that America needed a magazine devoted to traditional values and to providing the ideas, information, and inspiration that families needed to help them live a better life. This translated into a service magazine addressing middle-class families who were interested in their homes, their kitchens, and their gardens. The food page editor, Josephine Wylie, presented ethnic dishes, recognized the housewife’s need to save time by introducing “Six Twenty Minute Meals,” published articles on food allergies and diet long before Americans considered their weight to be a health issue, and was the guiding light behind The Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook in 1930, the enormously successful all-purpose cookbook that sold forty thousand copies within three months.