Cyrus H. K. Curtis

• Born: June 18, 1850
• Birthplace: Portland, Maine
• Died: June 7, 1933
• Place of death: Wyncote, Pennsylvania

American magazine and newspaper publisher

Curtis capitalized on Americans’ interest in periodicals in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, making the Curtis Publishing Company an influential multimillion-dollar operation. He is best known for his hugely successful magazines, The Ladies’ Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post.

Source of wealth: Media

Bequeathal of wealth: Children; educational institution; medical institution; museum

Early Life

Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar Curtis was born in 1850 in Portland, Maine, the son of Cyrus Libby Curtis and Salome Ann Cummings Curtis. His family was of average means. Curtis’s artistic father named him after a Boston musician, Hermann Kotzschmar. When twelve-year-old Curtis needed money to buy fireworks to celebrate the Fourth of July, he turned to his mother for assistance. Although she gave him some change, she suggested he earn additional money to buy the fireworks. Later, Curtis met a friend trying to sell his last three copies of the Courier newspaper on the street. Curtis offered him three cents for all of the copies and then resold them for three cents each. With his nine cents, he bought his own copies of the Courier and sold these for a total of eighteen cents. To make more money, he looked for customers with no access to the newspaper and marketed the publication to them. This event marked the beginning of his publishing career.

First Ventures

Young Curtis developed a reputation for his industrious behavior and was contacted by the Courier’s rival, the Portland Press. The Press’s business manager offered him a steady income of $2 per week to cover an early-morning newspaper route. Curtis accepted, rising at four o’clock each morning for four years, delivering his newspapers, and getting to school by nine o’clock. Later, a manager at the Portland Argus offered him more money, and Curtis went to work for the Argus. However, the young entrepreneur began to dream of owning a newspaper and working for himself. In partnership with a friend, fifteen-year-old Curtis wrote and published Young American, a newspaper for boys, in 1863. The printing costs left the partnership in debt, and Curtis’s parents dissolved the business.

Curtis bought a small handpress for $2.50 in order to print his own newspaper. When a businessman queried Curtis about the cost of advertising in his newspaper, Curtis found a new source of revenue to support his efforts. He began accepting other printing jobs in order to garner additional income. However, on July, 4, 1866, Portland was devastated by a fire that reached Curtis’s home. His publishing business was lost as his family escaped with their lives and only a few of their belongings. With the family in financial crisis, Curtis left school at age sixteen to work and never attended college. He became an errand boy for a dry goods store and was later promoted to salesman.

Mature Wealth

Curtis moved to Boston, where he earned $2 per week more than he had received from his job in Portland. Soon he was offered an additional 25 percent commission by an advertising agency, and he sold advertisements to make extra money during his lunchtime. After a year, he struck out on his own, developing a partnership to publish the People’s Ledger in 1872. He eventually bought his partner’s interest in this publication for $600. With limited capital to invest in the People’s Ledger, Curtis was blessed with a benefactor, W. C. Allan. Later, Curtis moved his newspaper to Philadelphia, where his printing costs were reduced by $1,500 a year. Curtis was now a hardworking, optimistic, twenty-six-year-old newspaper publisher.

Curtis eventually sold the People’s Ledger. The owners of the Philadelphia Press, a newspaper with a circulation of thirty-five thousand, asked Curtis to become its manager for $15 per week and a 25 percent commission on the advertising he sold. Although he performed well, Curtis wanted to start his own publication, Tribune and Farmer. One specialty column in this publication, “Women and Home,” gained such popularity that Curtis decided to make it a separate supplement and sold it by subscription for fifty cents per year. His wife, Louisa Knapp Curtis, who was the author of the column, edited the new supplement, called The Ladies’ Home Journal and Practical Housekeeper. The first issue of the publication appeared in 1883; three years later, the last three words were deleted from the title.

Curtis gave up his partnership in Tribune and Farmer to devote all of his time to The Ladies’ Home Journal. The magazine prospered, and its circulation grew to 100,000 readers. Curtis secured the services of well-known writers, such as Louisa May Alcott. When he raised the subscription price from fifty cents to $1 per year, he lost some subscribers but improved his overall financial position. In 1889, Edward W. Bok became the editor, and the magazine had a circulation of 500,000. In 1904, The Ladies’ Home Journal was the first magazine to have a circulation of more than one million.

In June, 1891, Curtis formed a stock company, the Curtis Publishing Company. The firm’s board of directors agreed to buy 4,950 shares of stock with a value of $100 per share, generating capital of almost $500,000. Curtis was president of the board and held a controlling interest in the newly formed company. The Curtis Company of New Jersey was founded in 1900 and assumed the older company’s business. In 1907, Curtis Publishing Company had capital of $2.5 million, which increased to $5 million in 1910. In 1929, advertising revenues for the company rose to $73 million, dropping to $67 million during the Great Depression in 1930.

Curtis became interested in The Saturday Evening Post, a weekly periodical that had been founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1728. However, by the late nineteenth century the periodical was poorly edited and teetered on the brink of financial demise. Intrigued by its heritage, Curtis paid $1,000 to purchase The Saturday Evening Post in 1897. He made the magazine a success. In 1933, Time magazine reported that the Post had a circulation of 2.9 million. With his creative spirit and sound business approach, Curtis lived to see the Post generate more than $22.5 million in revenue in 1932 and $47 million in 1933. In the same years, The Ladies’ Home Journal’s advertising revenue was about $8.1 million and $15 million, respectively.

Curtis used his wealth to purchase the finer things of life. In 1922, The New York Times ran a story about a George Romney painting that Curtis had bought, which was valued between $60,000 and $70,000. In an interview, Curtis said his wife was the art collector, not he. He did speak fondly of his yacht, the Lyndonia, where he spent half of his time. The yacht, listed in his wife’s name, cost $450,000.

Curtis suffered a heart attack in the summer of 1932 while he was on his yacht and was admitted to a hospital in Philadelphia. He remained in poor health until he died on June 7, 1933.

Legacy

Cyrus H. K. Curtis has been called one of the richest men in history. Adjusted to 2008 inflation rates, he was worth an estimated $43.2 billion. He was a generous man, donating to various causes, including the Franklin Institute ($2 million) and the University of Pennsylvania ($1 million). Curtis Island, for which he donated the land and the building that became the Camden Yacht Club, is where Curtis spent many summers. After his death, his daughter Mary Louise Curtis Bok established the Curtis Arboretum in Wyncote, Pennsylvania, to honor her father, who enjoyed nature. Curtis donated his Kotzschmar Memorial Organ to Portland, Maine, and Bok would later donate the Curtis Memorial Organ to Christ Church in her father’s memory.

A world-renowned publisher in his time, Curtis represents the American dream of a person from humble roots with few advantages who works hard to achieve his or her goals. With little formal education, Curtis used his ingenuity and business acumen to invest and secure his goal of building a publishing business. He was known as a man of integrity who refused to allow poor industry practices or unscrupulous marketing schemes to taint his business. He understood the importance of target advertising to finance his publications. He was perhaps the first publisher to develop a research department in order to study the relationship of his subscribers and print media to advertising. Curtis believed in hiring competent editors and managers and then supported their work. He was a kind and approachable man, who used his wealth to move his business forward and to support worthwhile projects.

Bibliography

Bok, Edward W. A Man From Maine. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1923. Bok, the son-in-law and a former editor for Curtis, provides a candid insight into Curtis’s life from childhood until after his death in 1933.

Curtis Publishing Company Records. Philadelphia: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 2009. The Web site located at http://www.hsp.org/files/findingaid 3115curtispublishing.pdf includes an abstract with key information on Cyrus Curtis and records about the Curtis Publishing Company from 1891 to 1968.

Fuller, Walter D. The Life and Times of Cyrus H. K. Curtis. New York: The Newcomen Society of England, American Branch, 1948. Provides insights from a former president of Curtis Publishing Company into key aspects of Cyrus Curtis’s life and business.

Krabbendam, Hans. The Model Man: A Life of Edward William Bok, 1863-1930. Atlanta, Ga.: Rodopi, 2001. Describes the life of Bok, a Dutch-American who was editor of The Ladies’ Home Journal and married Curtis’s only daughter.

Time. “The Press: After Curtis.” July 17, 1933. Summary review of Curtis’s life and business written a month after his death that includes key points about his business in the early 1930’s.

Walker, Nancy A. Shaping Our Mothers’ World: American Women’s Magazines. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2000. Walker, a Vanderbilt University professor, explores how magazines, including Curtis’s The Ladies’ Home Journal, affected the image of women and helped define their role in the post-World War II era.