Author Description

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize “[He] is the only man I ever heard of who changed, for the better, the architecture of an entire nation, and he did it so quickly and effectively that we didn't know it was begun before it was finished.” – President Theodore Roosevelt When Edward Bok arrived in America from the Netherlands in 1869, he spoke no English and received little education. Unable to interact with his surroundings, he struggled to make ends meet and make a living in his new home. et in this remarkable, autobiographical rags to riches account, Bok leveraged his exceptional intellect and drive to become editor of The Ladies Home Journal – the magazine with the largest circulation in the United States at the time. While it was first published on February 16, 1883, Bok took the helm in 1889 and under his tutelage, grew it into one of the leading women's magazines in the United States. In fact, during Bok’s 30-year tenure, The Ladies Home Journal would become first magazine to reach one million subscribers, and he used his influence – and its pages – to champion progressive causes to his wide readership, including women’s rights, environmental sustainability, public sex education, prenatal care and children's health. He achieved such enormous success with his magazine by introducing novel business practices including a low-price subscription that the average housewife could afford, inclusion of advertising to off-set costs, and reliance on popular content that engaged his readership. He started a one-man crusade against what he considered to be the dreary state of American architecture, advocating for more affordable, modern architecture and design in the average consumer’s home. He even crusaded against the idea of expensive, rarely used “parlours” in the home, and instead advocated converting them to the modern “living room”. Women’s magazines would go on to spark the ‘magazine revolution’ and energize the later Mad-Men M