Women's Magazine Archive

Women’s Magazine Archive Collection 1

Women’s Magazine Archive Collection 1, launched in September 2015, comprises archival runs of leading women’s consumer magazines of the twentieth century. All feature deep backfiles, with some extending back to the nineteenth century. Now complete, the collection offers approximately 850,000 pages, scanned in full color.

The title list for the collection is:

• Better Homes & Gardens (1922 to 2005)
• Chatelaine (1928 to 2005)
• Good Housekeeping (1885 to 2005)
• Ladies’ Home Journal (1885 to 2005)
• Parents (1926 to 2005)
• Redbook (1903 to 2005)

All of these titles were published monthly and the length of backfile ranges from 78 years to 123 years; each provides a rich seam of material attesting to changing social, historical and cultural trends over a period of many decades.

Women’s Magazine Archive Collection 2

Women’s Magazine Archive Collection 2, launched in September 2016, features six leading consumer magazines and will total approximately 850,000 pages on completion (scheduled for H1 2019).

As well as offering major, high-circulating general women’s interest titles, such as Woman’s Day, it builds on Women's Magazine Archive 1 by including some titles focusing on more specific audiences and themes. Cosmopolitan and Seventeen, for example, are oriented towards a younger readership, while black women’s interests are represented by Essence. Women’s International Network News differs in being a more political, activist title, with an international dimension.

The title list is:

• Cosmopolitan (1886 to 2005; Cosmopolitan merged with Hearst’s International  in 1925 – the merged title was known for several years as Hearsts’s International Combined with Cosmopolitan before reverting to the title Cosmopolitan.)
• Essence (1970 to 2005)
• Seventeen (1944 to 2005)
• Town and Country (1846 to 2005)
• Woman’s Day (1937 to 2005)
• Women’s International Network News (1975 to 2003)

Our policy is to include every issue of each publication from the first through to 2005 and to scan from cover to cover. Due to the rarity of some of the original print volumes, there small gaps (issues or pages) for some publications. Page-level completeness to date is approximately 99%.