women's magazines in 1950s

[Mossleybrow]

I am looking at the 1950s for a course I am reaching on women in C20th. What magazines did your mother or grandmother read in the 1950s: Woman's Own, Woman, Woman's Realm ..or something else?

Those, plus My Weekly

Or was it Woman's Weekly? 🧐

Maybe both

Woman's Weekly.

(That was what my DM read, but perhaps also an answer to the PP)

I used to love reading Woman when I went to visit my aunt, so when I was 13 I gave up having the Girls' Crystal delivered, and had Woman instead. This was in 1951.

I think it was Woman's Weekly, Woman's Own and People's Friend. They'd be passed around though and tattered by the time she got them, often with patterns and recipes cut out. I remember this from the 60s and 70s.

My DM read She magazine - I particularly remember Nancy Spain. www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp59804/nancy-spain

There was a little one with abridged romances too. Awful thing.

Math and physics textbooks.

Sorry, that was a bit snarky!

And the True Crime ones! Bloody awful things, really gruesome!

Slightly later but my mother read She in the 60s and 70s. She was first published in 1956.

The 70s version of She was a far cry from the vapid rag it turned into.

I'm now having happy memories of chaste romantic fiction (strictly no sex before marriage!), traybakes and knitting patterns - I didn't learn to knit till later (grandpa did the knitting for our family, to his own designs) but maybe that's where I absorbed the elements of computer programming from.

The readers digest. Although I'm not sure it's quite a magazine as such.

I'm now having happy memories of chaste romantic fiction (strictly no sex before marriage!), traybakes and knitting patterns

That was about it. There might have been a gardening column and I also remember a column from a pastor or priest in one of them. There were articles on 'The Royals', but never scandalous. Maybe a bit of fashion? Advice about being thrifty? Vague memories. The pages were softer and the colours duller.

I only knew one grandmother, she was deaf and couldn't read very well. I don't think she read for pleasure and I never saw her with a book, newspaper or magazine.
The women in my family had very little money to spend on themselves, they read the newspaper after the men had finished with it.

The women in my family had very little money to spend on themselves, they read the newspaper after the men had finished with it

Yes, but magazines, if they were acquired, were always passed on and around until they were in tatters!

The Reader's Digest. I loved looking at our vintage copies from the 1940s onwards - the adverts were fascinating.

I used to read Crawfie's column in the Woman's Own about the two princesses; the Royal Family cut her off completely after she started writing. Apparently she was heartbroken.

It would be really interesting to see the Agony Aunt columns through the 50s, 60s and 70s.

I remember reading Evelyn Home, Anna Raeburn, Virginia Ironside in the 70s.

I don't know what date this Evelyn Home article is from but it's interesting reading.

Some rather questionable advice on this one.

www.gypsycreams.org/tag/problem-page/

Only one that I can remember:Readers Digest. It used to have some rather good short stories, one of which I read about a deranged baby sitter which was made into a movie starring Marilyn Monroe before she became mega famous.

My mum had My Weekly delivered

Woman's Own, possibly Woman's Realm and a nurses' magazine, I think Nursing Mirror.

Woman's Own was very unlike the modern version: it had features, fiction, recipes and I think knitting patterns, chat, practical housekeeping. No gossip or scandal; lots of practical stuff.

I was born in the 1950’s and the agony aunt columns from then into the late 60’s were hilarious by modern standards. Or perhaps depressing is a better word - women with cheating and abusive husbands were firmly told to remember their marriage vows and put up with it.
There were articles admonishing women for letting themselves go to seed after marriage- they were exhorted to put on some lipstick before their husbands came home from work, and have his slippers and a drink ready. And not to pester him - he was to be allowed to unwind in peace while they cooked his dinner!