On our recent trip home from LA, I purchased the January 2010 issue of Good Housekeeping and quickly found out that this magazine is celebrating a Big Birthday - 125 years of housekeeping tips, recipes, decorating, stories and advice on raising kids, money, organizing, budgeting etc.The editor did some reflecting on what it was like 125 years ago and tells us that “on May 2, 1885, Clark W. Bryan published the first edition of Good Housekeeping . . . it’s mission: to produce and perpetuate perfection… as [it] may be obtained in the household.”
Although she does go on to say that today it’s not so much about perfection, I still had to smile and be surprised that a magazine with this name has lasted this long. I think it’s wonderful that a secular magazine took on the task of inspiring women, according to the New York Tribune (1985) "with noble suggestions for the making of happy and healthful homes." It would be fun to see some of those earlier editions.
For example, an ivory soap ad went as follows:
Said Mrs. Brown to Mrs Green,
“What makes your garments look so clean?
No speck of dirt on them is seen
To mar your linen’s glossy sheen.
Your woolen dress that was so soiled,
I thought that it was surely spoiled,
Now looks as spick and span as though
It never had been spattered so!
This fine old lace is firm and white;
Your silk hose keep their colors bright;
Your shawl, your gloves, are spotless too;
That old print gown seems really new!
In vain my laundress boils and rubs
The clothes, and labors at her tubs.
My newest garments soon look worn,
Get streaked and lusterless and torn.
Said Mrs. Green in turn, “My dear,
Poor soap has spoiled your clothes, I fear,
Compelled your laundress first to boil,
Then spend her days in fruitless toil.
My laundress uses IVORY SOAP
And in its cakes for you there’s hope.
What in my clothes so pleases you,
To Ivory Soap is wholly due.”
What I do wonder about is, what is a laundress?
Ha, I guess my Whirlpool Cabrio has taken her place.
6 comments:
I so enjoy the old magazines and noted that they were having an anniversary. I've always had a bit of a weakness for homemaking magazines .. there is something about a copy that has not had it's pages opened up.
I think a laundress in Indonesia is a pembantu :-)
Good Housekeeping magazine used to be one of my favorite splurges. Though I never kept any of the old issues...I have many recipes clipped from the pages. 125 years of publication under that name is amazing!
Such a funny ad! A laundress boiling clothes, and Ivory Soap cakes saving the day.....things sure have changed!
I have never seen that magazine before...can you just buy it anywhere?
Larissa, now that I think about it, I can't say that I've for sure seen it here in Canada, since I mostly have bought my magazines at aiports. It's an American magazine, but I will look now to see if it's here. Are you back from Mexico?
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