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EVENING LED&ER-PHIL'ADEEPHIA, MONDAY, MAY 17, 191S:
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THE IMPULSE TO SURVIVE
The first of four advertisements descriptive of The Saturday Evening Post
Mr
Ml:
The Saturday Evening Post contains more
advertising than any other periodical.
Many manufacturers make it the backbone of
their campaigns, and some employ it alone. In
various important classifications it contains from 40
to 80 per cent, of all the national advertising.
Its volume of advertising has increased every
year for ten years.
And more than 85 per cent, of its advertising
last year came from advertisers who had also used,
it the year before.
Only one thing can account for such dominance
and such an enduring patronage from the most
astute manufacturers in the country
This one thing is proven merit as an advertising
medium.
The strength of the Post lies in its vast circula
tion, its thorough distribution and its acute interest
for millions of intelligent, prosperous readers.
Back of all this is the editorial policy.
Founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1728, The
Saturday Evening Post was bought by The Curtis
Publishing Company in 1897.
It then had a circulation of 1800 a week.
Today it has more than 2,000,000 a week.
This growth has come because from the first
there has been a consistent idea behind the Post
the idea of Americanism,
All human actions are governed by three im
pulses (1) the impulse to survive, (2) the impulse to
mate, (3) the impulse to play.
American life is characterized more by the sur
vival impulse than by any other. "Business" is the
keynote of America. It has the most intense con
cern for the American man, and for his family, who
are anxious to understand the mystery which takes
so much of his time and thought.
Most periodicals had been based on the play
impulse and the mating impulse. They thus became
entertaining and romantic. The Post was based on
the survival impulse, and thus became vital. And
its editor saw no' reason why it should not at the
same time be entertaining and romantic.
The Post brought into being an entirely new
school of fiction the business story and the special
article dealing not with serried ranks of statistics,
but with the very blood and sinews of business.
The roar of machinery, the click of the ticker,
the grease and grime of work here was a new
country, and the Post homesteaded it. The "glory
that was Greece" and "the grandeur that was Rome"
were interpreted into the enthusiasm that is Chicago.
In politics so involved in the business life of
the country it opened up a rich field. Hitherto
everybody with an "honorable" prefixed to his name
had been regarded either as a saint or a sinner. The
Post argued that he was a human being, made of
the same sort of dust as the doctor or the village
blacksmith. It praised his virtues, tried to explain
his motives, laughed at his poses and pretenses. This
laughing has oftentimes made him squirm a bit, but
it has proved good for his soul.
The whole drama, tragedy and comedy of the
struggle to survive in business and public life was
made more absorbing even than the struggle of the
hero in the time-honored story of adventure in
distant lands.
The mating impulse and the play impulse were
by no mean's forgotten. The same standard of
sanity was applied to love stories and all the "lighter"
sort of fiction, to the treatment of sports, the theatre,
travel, art, to verse and to illustration. A Saturday
Evening Post cover, wholesome, sympathetic, uni
versal, represents the searching "human interest"
that runs through the whole publication.
Thus has been created a weekly that is modern
but not yellow; informing but not stodgy; entertain
ing but not frivolous.
Because it so closely interprets the major interests-
of most Americans, the Post each week enters
2,000,000 American homes to be read with zest by
every member of the family.
And it is significant that the Post is taken into
a large majority of these homes by the man the
member of the family with the least time and least
inclination for reading, and therefore most difficult
to reach.
From its appeal to the whole family including
that least accessible member the man is derived
much of its stalwart energy as an advertising
medium.
,: THE. CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY, INDEPENDENCE SQUARE, PHILADELPHIA
i r r
The Ladies' Home Journal
The Saturday Evening Post
The Country Gentleman ,
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