Ladies' Home Journal (November 1932)

Philadelphia: The Curtis Publishing Company. Good. 1932. (Vol. XLIX, No. 11). Magazine. [presents very well, nice clean covers, just a tiny pinky-nail-size chunk out of the right edge of the front cover -- BUT NOTE that pp. 17/18 and pp.109-114 are missing]. (B&W and color illustrations and ads) Oversize vintage magazine (in those days the LHJ was approx. 11"x14", about the same size as The Saturday Evening Post and like publications), largely devoted to numerous "ladies'" features, grouped under useful headings such as "How to Cook," "How to Keep House," etc. Some of the vital topics covered are "Fitting Your Face to the Fashions," "Please Your Guests With Simple Suppers," "The Knack of Making Biscuits," and of course "The Well-Dressed Homemaker." Other interesting articles include: the first installment of the personal recollections of Alice Roosevelt Longworth; short biographical profiles (with portrait sketches) of that year's Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates' wives; a short piece on "When Louisa May Alcott Wrote for the Journal"; For my money, however, the fiction is the real attraction, and in this issue there are seven stories (two of which are actually installments of serially-published novels): "The Film Face" by Vicki Baum (translated from the German); "The Quarrel" by Pearl S. Buck; "Fancy Pants" by Florence Ostern; "Blue for True Love" by Ruth Comfort Mitchell; "Three Women, Part III (Conclusion)" by Willa Cather; "A Week and a Day, Part II" by Sophie Kerr. (One additional story, "Surprise Ending," by Graeme and Sarah Lorimer, is unfortunately missing its opening page. Also missing is the beginning of an article, "The Sawdust Trail" by evangelist Billy Sunday.) And of course one of the most attractive features of any popular magazine of this period are the advertisements, in this case largely either fashion- or food-oriented. (I especially like the Crisco ad, touting its salutary effects on one's digestion.) .