Edward W. Bok was a longtime editor of the influential magazine The Ladies' Home Journal, embodied the ideals of Progressive Era America.
Background
Bok was born in 1863 in Den Helder, Netherlands. The Boks were one of the leading families of the Netherlands: Edward's grandfather served as the chief justice of the Supreme Court and his father, William J. H. Bok, was a well connected diplomatic figure in the Dutch government. Unfortunately, Bok's father lost much of the family's fortune with a series of bad investment decisions.
Education
The strain on the family became so great that at the age of thirteen Bok left school for good to work as a messenger for Western Union.
Career
In 1889 the young advertising director was offered a position as head of the editorial and art departments at a new magazine, The Ladies' Home Journal. Its founders, Cyrus and Louisa (Knapp) Curtis, expanded the supplemental women's section into the Ladies' Home Journal and Practical Housekeeper in December 1883 and by 1889 the magazine had about 440, 000 subscribers.
Eventually, the magazine dropped the "Practical Housekeeper" from its name. Bok and the Curtises also attempted to link the magazine with the wealthiest families in urban centers across the United States in their presentations to advertisers.
The efforts paid off, and The Ladies' Home Journal quickly cast off its image as a rural publication aimed at farmers' wives.
Once the image makeover had been substantially completed, the publishing team worked at increasing its circulation to reach a broader urban and suburban audience.
In 1891 The Ladies' Home Journal reached the 600, 000 mark in paid subscriptions; the figure passed one million subscribers in 1903.
By fashioning itself into an upper-class publication accessible to the mass market, the magazine became one of the first to capture a middle-class readership aspiring for upward mobility and respectability. With the groundbreaking success of The Ladies' Home Journal, Bok became something of legend in the magazine field by the time he was thirty years old.
As an influential magazine editor and frequent contributor to The Ladies' Home Journal, Bok typified many of the sentiments of the Progressive Era of American history, a period that spanned the years from 1890 to World War I.
In response, Progressive Era leaders called for a variety of reforms; although few argued for a fundamental overhaul of American institutions, the period was nevertheless marked by a nationwide preoccupation with reform measures.
Indeed, as a magazine that steered clear of the most controversial topics, The Ladies' Home Journal rarely covered inflammatory subjects such as race relations, prison reform, or poverty.
One typical call for reform included demands for better labeling laws in food and drugs to assure consumers of their purity.
An exceptional reform crusade in Bok's final decade as editor was his encouraging of educators to take up sex education as a civic responsibility and to safeguard the health of women and children.