Reader's Digest magazine
Reader's Digest is a popular American magazine founded by DeWitt and Lila Bell Wallace in the early 20th century. Initially conceived while DeWitt was recovering from a wartime injury, the magazine aimed to provide condensed versions of articles from various sources, making information more accessible to readers. It quickly gained traction, reaching nearly 300,000 subscribers by the late 1920s and over four million by 1940. During World War II, Reader's Digest shifted its focus to uplifting content designed to support and encourage the American public amid challenging times.
The magazine also expanded internationally during the 1940s, establishing foreign-language editions in multiple countries and boasting a readership of over 15 million by 1950. In its heyday, Reader's Digest was noted for its values of optimism and determination, reflecting American ideals. However, its format evolved in the 1950s and beyond, incorporating advertising and diversifying its content to include condensed fiction and various contests. Today, Reader's Digest continues to be recognized for its broad appeal and diverse range of topics, catering to a global audience.
Reader's Digest magazine
Identification Monthly general interest magazine
Date First published in 1922
A success with the American reading public from its first appearance during the early 1920’s, Reader’s Digest was one of the most popular magazines in the United States during the 1940’s. However, the decade was the last one in which the magazine maintained the innovative features originally envisioned by its creators.
Reader’s Digest was the brainchild of two American midwesterners, a married couple, DeWitt Wallace and Lila Bell Wallace. From an early age, DeWitt Wallace had an obsessive habit of maintaining lists of suggestions for solving everyday problems. An avid reader of popular magazines, he also developed a compulsive drive to synopsize the many books and articles he read. While recovering after suffering an injury in World War I, Wallace thought of publishing a magazine consisting of condensations of articles from other periodicals. Working out of their apartment, the Wallaces sold the first edition of Reader’s Digest directly to subscribers whom they had attracted through mailed-out publicity. The small, compact magazine was an immediate success. By the end of the 1920’s, almost 300,000 Americans had subscriptions, and by 1940, more than four million subscribed.
In 1940, Reader’s Digest published two articles that presaged the coming U.S. involvement in World War II. One offered a sympathetic account of the sufferings of the United Kingdom during the Battle of Britain, and another warned of the growing militancy and aggression of Japan’s leaders. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, however, the Wallaces tended to stress upbeat, encouraging news and to provide how-to articles to help readers further the war effort and endure the tensions and restrictions of the time. Lexicographer Wilfred Funk’s columns on vocabulary improvement remained popular, as did humor columns relating humorous real-life anecdotes sent in by readers.
Throughout the 1940’s, the Wallaces insisted on maintaining two of their more innovative early practices: sales only through the mail and no advertising within the pages of the periodical. Perhaps the most significant aspect of Reader’s Digest’s development during the 1940’s was its many inroads into the markets of other countries. In 1940, the magazine was published only in the United States and the United Kingdom. During World War II, the Wallaces set up deals with publishers in Sweden and in several Latin American countries to publish foreign-language editions there. From the end of the war until the end of the decade, the magazine appeared in many other countries also, including Australia, Finland, Belgium, Denmark, Canada, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and others. By 1950, Reader’s Digest had more than 15 million readers around the world.
Impact
During the 1940’s, Reader’s Digest embodied much of the courage and fortitude of Americans, with its continued growth in sales and its determination to expand into more and more markets in other countries. Within its pages were encoded values such as determination, optimism, and rationality that Americans considered essential. Although the magazine continued to be widely read for many years, much of what had defined it in its earliest decades changed during the 1950’s and afterward, as it began to include conventional advertising and to branch out into condensed fiction and elaborate sweepstakes contests.
Bibliography
Ashby, LeRoy. With Amusement for All: A History of American Popular Culture Since 1830. Lexington: University of Kentucky, Press, 2006.
Canning, Peter. American Dreamers: The Wallaces and Reader’s Digest. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
Sharp, Joanne P. Condensing the Cold War: “Reader’s Digest” and American Identity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000.