COSMOPOLITAN
Cosmopolitan of the twenty-first century has no resemblance to its namesake founded in the late nineteenth
century. Dramatic transformations in format and style succeeded at various points in the magazine’s history, enabling
Cosmopolitan to create a new or substantially different
readership when its circulation or advertising mired in a
period of long decline. The original Cosmopolitan was a
monthly literary magazine from March 1886 to early 1889.
It published serial fiction, short stories of adventure and
romance, poems, and translations of European writers. The
magazine achieved a small circulation of twenty thousand
to twenty-five thousand copies, not enough to return a profit
for the three different publishers that owned Cosmopolitan
during its first years, which included missing two editions
in the summer of 1888.
John Brisben Walker, a wealthy real estate magnate
from Denver who previously had worked for newspapers in
the Midwest, bought Cosmopolitan in 1889 when its publisher was about to kill the title. Walker retained the literary
format, but added nonfiction articles, primarily travelogues
and summaries of current events. Most important, Walker
spent lavishly on quality woodcut illustrations and the
newly feasible photographs made possible by the half-tone
engraving process.
Walker gradually reduced fiction and poetry to add more
nonfiction articles to Cosmopolitan on important political
and social issues. He was fascinated by transportation,
too, and Cosmopolitan treated readers to the latest developments in railroads, automobiles, subway systems, and
aviation. Walker promoted higher education for women,
resolution of racial problems, and a belief that modern
technology would create a better world. Cosmopolitan editions containing articles, illustrations, and photographs of
the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 and St. Louis
World’s Fair in 1904 testify to the publisher’s fascination
with themes of progress.
Cosmopolitan soared in circulation, distributing 350,000
copies a month during the late 1890s when it briefly was
the largest quality general magazine in the nation. Walker,
however, had a desire to become an automobile magnate,
and he sold Cosmopolitan to William Randolph Hearst in
1905 to obtain the money necessary for his venture into
manufacturing cars, which later bankrupted him.
Hearst quickly transformed Cosmopolitan to a magazine version of his sensationalist newspapers. A series of
articles in 1906, “The Treason of the Senate,” was a late
entry into what became known as muckraking journalism,
a label specifically derived from the angry reaction by President Theodore Roosevelt to the Cosmopolitan series that
exposed bribery and corruption by senators whose actions
were favorable to cartels and other powerful economic
interests. Cosmopolitan continued its exposé journalism
for several years.
With a diminution of public interest in muckraking journalism and with evidence that fiction was more popular with
readers, Hearst again transformed Cosmopolitan in 1912. It
became a fiction magazine that also featured classy illustrations by famous contemporary artists, including Charles
Dana Gibson. Serial fiction and short stories focused on
romance, marital infidelity, and other rather risqué themes
for the era. The serials supplied complete novels over many
months, a method to retain subscribers and to keep singlecopy purchasers buying the magazine month after month.
Journalistic articles eventually appeared infrequently, while
nonfiction essays on political and social issues replaced
them. Circulation reached one million copies a month by
1915. Artful cover illustrations throughout the 1910s into
the 1920s depicted sophisticated young women, fashionably dressed and affluent.
Cosmopolitan combined with Hearst’s International
magazine in 1925 for efficiency, because both magazines
delivered similar material to readers. This resulted in a
rather cumbersome cover masthead for the dual titles; by
the 1930s, Cosmopolitan was in larger type than Hearst’s
International, which was dropped from the cover in 1952.
Stories by Fannie Hurst, Somerset Maugham, Sinclair
Lewis, and P.G. Wodehouse were commissioned for a middle-class readership. Near the end of the 1920s, editors also added melodramatic and adventure stories. The magazine
endured the Great Depression, attaining a monthly circulation of nearly two million copies by the start of World
War II. Notable writers—among them Pearl Buck, Agatha
Christie, A. J. Cronin, Edna Ferber, Ellery Queen, Rebecca
West—published their work in Cosmopolitan and noteworthy persons—Albert Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, Bernard
Shaw—published essays on contemporary issues during the
1930s. Cover illustrations portrayed young women enjoying
the amenities of city life at galleries, restaurants, and parks.
Another transformation occurred early in the postwar
years when Cosmopolitan shifted to primarily nonfiction articles aimed at the many young mothers who stayed
home to care for the children of the Baby Boom generation.
The magazine introduced how-to articles on childrearing,
housekeeping, budgeting, recipes, and other subjects, while
also providing advice columns. Cover photographs substituted for the artful illustrations that had been a Cosmopolitan trademark.
Celebrity coverage also was important. Articles and
interviews with movie stars and personalities from television programs were regular items. Because of intense competition from several other magazines also directed toward
women readers from middle-class households, Cosmopolitan faltered for an extended period, and its circulation fell
below two million copies by the early 1960s.
Loss of readers meant loss of advertisers. The magazine,
which since the 1930s had routinely published 140 to 180
pages a month, experienced a dramatic decrease in revenue. Executives drastically reduced the number of copies
distributed for newsstand sales to control costs. To reverse
the downward trend, Hearst Corporation executives hired
Helen Gurley Brown, author of a best-selling book on attitudes about sex among single women, to remake Cosmopolitan in 1965. Sex, sexuality, and advice about beauty,
careers, fashion, and other subjects of interest to women in
their twenties and thirties were the mainstay of Cosmopolitan from that point forward.
Cosmopolitan thrived for years on this formula. Also,
cover photographs and lengthy profiles of celebrities, along
with ever more sexually provocative photographs in advertisements and articles, appealed to a substantial number
of women readers. International editions of the magazine
proved popular in Britain and Europe. Circulation surpassed
three million copies a month and remained near that number into the twenty-first century. Advertisers again flocked
to the magazine, and occasionally the magazine exceeded
three hundred pages.
Further Reading
Endres, Lathleen L., and Therese L. Lueck. Women’s Periodicals
in the United States, Consumer Magazines..Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press, 1995.
Zuckerman, Mary Ellen, A History of Women’s Magazines in the
United
States, 1792–1995. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998.
James Landers