Woman's Day

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John Clymer cover for Woman's Day (December, 1942)
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John Clymer cover for Woman's Day (December, 1942)

Woman's Day is a magazine aimed at a female readership, covering such subjects as food, nutrition, fitness, beauty and fashion. It was first published in 1931 as a free A&P in-store menu/recipe planner, calculated to make customers buy more by giving them meal ideas in an easy-to-read format available inside A&P stores.

Following the 1936 opening of A&P's first supermarket (in Braddock, Pennsylvania), A&P expanded Woman's Day in 1937 through a wholly-owned subsidiary, the Stores Publishing Company. The magazine featured articles on crafts, food preparation and cooking, home decoration, needlework, health and childcare, selling for two cents a copy.

Sold exclusively in A&P stores, Woman's Day had a circulation of 3,000,000 by 1944. This had reached 4,000,000 by the time A&P sold the magazine to an independent publisher in the late 1950s. By 1965, Woman's Day had climbed to a circulation of 6,500,000.

In a mid-1960s appeal to Madison Avenue, an ad for Woman's Day showed a friendly pharmacist named I.A. Morse next to copy that claimed:

So Woman's Day doesn't tell a lot of funny stories, and it doesn't run pictures of fashions its readers could never afford. Like I.A. Morse, Woman's Day -- more than any other magazine -- is a trusted advisor in the day in day out work that's a housewife's chosen profession. That's our profession. And we're proud of it. Like Doc Morse Woman's Day talks man to man to women.

In 1988 Woman's Day was acquired by Hachette Filipacchi Médias which publishes the magazine from offices at 1633 Broadway in New York. It continues to focus on traditional values of home, family and children. With a current circulation of 4,200,000, it claims a readership of more than 20 million with 17 issues a year. Jane Chesnutt, the vice president and editor-in-chief of Woman's Day also oversees Home.

Olivia Monjo is the editor-in-chief of Woman’s Day Special Interest Publications which annually publishes more than 30 special issues on building and remodeling, cooking, crafts, entertaining, gardening, holiday celebrations and home decorating.

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