Press: 370,000 Parents

In 1926 Cornell-educated George J. Hecht, who wanted to be a publisher and was fond of children, launched a monthly magazine “to educate parents” which he named Children, The Magazine for Parents. Sanguine Mr. Hecht hoped that in time 100,000 U. S. parents would subscribe to his journal of tips, stories, articles on child health, psychology, care. This week the tenth anniversary number of Children, The Magazine for Parents, now called simply Parents’ Magazine, went to 370,000 readers. Franklin Roosevelt sent congratulations. Publisher Hecht was prepared to guarantee his advertisers that by next year Parents’ Magazine would circulate 410,000 copies each month.

Achievement of such hefty circulation in a specialized field was a story of expert magazine promotion. From the start Publisher Hecht gave his magazine quasi-official status by allying it with Columbia University’s Teachers College, with Yale, with the Universities of Iowa and Minnesota. A platoon of “advisory editors” was appointed, each with a familiar, impressive name and no objection to mild publicity.

Among these “advisory editors,” whose billing in the magazine carefully relieves them of responsibility for its contents, are Cornell’s Livingston Farrand, Wisconsin’s President Glenn Frank, Author Angelo Patri, Chief Scout James E. West, many a child psychologist, teacher, pediatrician.

Filling his magazine with a judicious mixture of letters from readers and articles by professionals, Publisher Hecht got his 100,000 subscribers in two years. Contributors included Psychologists Alfred Adler and John B. Watson, Adman Earnest Elmo Calkins, Philosopher Bertrand Russell, Dr. Allan Roy (“Quintuplets”) Dafoe, Writers Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Kathleen Norris, Albert Payson Terhune, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt Roosevelt. On the subscription list were the Lindberghs, Mrs. Irving Thalberg, John D. Rockefeller III. In his tenth anniversary number.

Publisher Hecht explained it all to his own satisfaction, gave his editorial formula: “The field of child study, parent education and better homemaking . . . deals with all that is most fundamental in life—with the home, with the love of parents and children, the relation of husbands and wives, with all that makes for security and joy in living.”