EVEtflSTG LJSDGBB-PHlIAbELPHlA, ITfelPAY, MAY 7, 1&253 0 "frtiiSglick! V wjfi3zlll SbofctefojQ tasty ti Ail I I I Ml Vf?! I I I'll RESPONSIVENESS AND RESPONSIBILITY i i Tie fiird of bar advertisements descriptive of The Ladies' Home Journal. , !, 1M In the six months ending April 20, 1915, the editors of The Ladies' Home Journal received 268,512 letters from readers. These letters asked for suggestions on caring for babies, making gifts, decorating rooms. They asked for house plans. They asked how to trim hair and hats, how to make dresses, to plant gardens, to organize Sunday School classes. They wanted ideas for entertainments. They came from expectant mothers, from women writing club papers, from lonely women craving a friendly touch. They were the outpouring of hopes, foibles, troubles, confi dences, experiences. In them you might read the whole upward trend of American womanhood. The bond between the Journal and its readers is more than mere interest in the printed page. The vast correspondence be tween hundreds of thousands of women and twenty-six skilled editors makes the Journal a liv ing, breathing personality to its readers. "Whatever you want to know, ask The Journal," is the slogan of this service. Every letter is answered fully. Many replies are personally dictated or even written by hand. There" are today 4500 babies all over the country who are being fed, bathed, dressed and trained by the directions of the Journal's physician. Their progress is painstakingly charted, and individual reports and instructions sent regularly to the mothers. More than 40,000 children have been' thus reared up under the care of the Journal. More than 30,000 homes have been built in this country from Journal plans. One whole community in a Southern city is referred to as "Ladies'-Home-Journalville," Inquiries from readers received by Ladies' Home Journal Correspondence Departments in six months ending April 20, 1915, compared with the correspond ing period 1914. Art 3775 Home Building 50500 Gardens 1481 Poster Cover Orders 12123 Children's Department 11 542 Home Parties '. 21476 Minister's Social Helper 5472 Table and Cooking 5624 School Entertainments 2651 Miscellaneous Entertain m e n t Inquiries 19603 Home Dressmaking 7092 Hair 8183 Millinery 2344 Children's Clothes 2197 Miscellaneous Fashion Inquiries. 30585 Furnishing the Home 3460 Girls' Problems 928 Good Form 3238 Household Problems 3487 The Care of Babies 10245 Music 982 Needlework 41966 Pretty Girl Questions 5056 Prospective Mothers 2994 Reading and Literature 1261 Miscellaneous Inquiries about History, Biography, Drama, etc 10247 Such service as this means absolute reliance upon the Journal, and a good will which extends- to the advertiser. It means buying power. Where there is a baby, there is a real home. Not a halfway-house between the North Shore and Palm Beach, but a normal, earnest home, dreaming upward, eager for all that is new and progressive, with thousands of wants just developing and with an income increasing year by year a young home, with empty spaces picked out for the new chairs it hopes to have soon, with ambition to have more luxuries, and with the education of a fam ily brightening the horizon ahead. Likewise, people who are planning to build houses are people who are about to buy many things and who have the ready money to buy them and where are they more likely to study the selection of these things than in the very columns from which they have chosen the house itself? 0 ma. to 0 mo. to April 20, April SO, 1915 10H Increase Decrease 2111 1664 3850 46650 362 1119 4966 12821 13830 4224 5437 1924 7157 7646 1248 187 727 1279 8697 5613 7267 1764 18213 1885 1194 3294 438 10926 931 14446 27520 4998 58 4142 1264 24931 10906 1479 916 580 2197 12372 1575 3049 51 Totals 268512 159528 127101 TOTAL INCREASE 108984. 266 56 681 1148 3 14684 18117 Such a correspondence also snows a high responsiveness. When 25,934 women send 4 cents apiece to the Journal in answer to a single page about Christmas gifts when in six months 41,966 readers write to the needlework editors it means that Journal readers are in the habit of acting upon the ideas they read about. That they are responsive in the highest degree. This tendency to act extends to the advertising columns. That has been proved by the experience of hundreds of manufacturers. Responsiveness is based upon responsibility. Readers know that the Journal takes just as much responsibility for the integrity of its advertising columns as for that of its editorial contents and its tremendous departments of personal service.' And this brings results to the advertiser. THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY, INDEPENDENCE SQUARE, PHILADELPHIA ine L,aaies aome journal The Saturday Evening Post The Country Gentleman I V r 'M I" -' ' ' - ' ' ' 101 t, r w r 1