SSR 2 on Hsu-Ming Teo’s article 

The Americanisation of Romantic Love in Australia

By Mark Bradley

 

Complete citation:

Teo, Hsu-Ming, “The Americanisation of Romantic Love in Australia.” Connected

Worlds: History in Transnational Perspective. Edited by Ann Curthoys and Marilyn Lake,. Canberra: ANU E-Press, 2016. 171-92. Retrieved from 

http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p97101/pdf/cw_part3.pdf

 

Image Credit: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036734/mediaviewer/rm3752723200, accessed 29 October 2020

 

Key Words: Romance, advertisement, Consumption, Americanisation, marriage, culture, transnational.

Brief Overview: A detailed analysis of the American influence of consumer capitalism on the culture of romantic love in Australia during the twentieth century.

 

Summary of Key points:

* The transnational reach of American capitalism resulted in other countries adopting their marketing strategies.

* Due to Hollywood films and Advertisements in women’s magazines, Australian women adopted, before Australian men, American ideas of romance, creating conflict between the two nationalities.

 

Important Quotations:

“Australians generally tended to have more concrete and prosaic ideas about love. This was partly due to the fact that, unlike American culture, romantic love was not sacralised in Australian culture.”

 “Increasingly the visual style of Australian women’s magazine advertisements became more American, sometimes brazenly copied with minor adjustments to ‘Australianise’ the image.”

“Significantly, it was only after American magazines began to be imported to Australia in the postwar years, and the style of Australian advertising directed at men changed to a focus on them as consumers, that love letters from Australian men demonstrate the same notion of commodified romance that Australian women had become familiar with earlier in the century”

 

Usefulness to our group topic or individual project:

This chapter would assist in explaining how the romance in Hollywood movies influenced Australian societies ideas of romance. This influence then travelled through Australian magazines as advertisements for the commodification of love, affecting women first and creating conflict between Australian women, men and American soldiers.

 

PSR 3: Primary Source Report on BP Magazine December 1935 Issue

 

Circulation

What can you find out about the circulation of the magazine? How would you characterise the circulation--was it limited, or popular?  Can you find out if that was considered expensive?

The BP magazine was first published in 1928 by Burns, Philip and Company, as a travel and lifestyle magazine. The price of an issue changed three times, with the final and cheapest cost being one shilling from 1930 to its last issue in 1942. This price was quite reasonable for its quality. I am not sure of the circulation, but it was apparently popular.

 

Editor

Does the magazine have the same editor for a range of time? Can you find out anything about this person?  What is her or her background, education, training? If the editor writes for the magazine, what kind of things does he/she write?

The editor of the magazine was Dora Payter, who was one of only few female magazine editors at the time. Dora allowed the readership to help shape the magazine through a slogan contest, with the winning slogan reflecting the magazine: “A door to the world, the world to your door”.

 

Implied Reader

After studying thoroughly a single issue of the magazine--ads, articles, stories, everything--consider its target reader implied by the magazine’s contents: age, sex, economic class, intellectual class, race, political position, and anything else that seems important

The implied readers are middle class, white and adventurous travellers, as evidenced by most advertisements and articles featuring white models and citizens meant to reflect the targeted reader. Although most material is enticing adults to travel, there are also some pages of travel stories for children. Advertisements for banks and loans are numerous, suggesting many readers were not affluent.

 

Contents

a. In a single issue, what kind of content gets the most pages (creative: fiction, poetry, drama, visual art, music/ critical: cultural, aesthetic, social, political/ informative: travel, biography, history, news)

Most articles are related to travel and focused on overseas trips and exploration of strange and oriental locations. Nature is an important element in most of the travel illustrations.

 

b. Advertising: Ratio of advertising to other aspects of the text. What kind of advertising gets the most space? Anything else significant about advertising?

An advertisement trend is of travel to England, focusing on the modern European trends and culture rather than nature, again reflecting the white target audience. There are many products advertised relating to travel, such as alcohol, cameras, tinned food, and jewellery. Essentially most advertisements revolve around a reader contemplating travel and holiday. The remaining advertisements that are not directly related to travel are located among the last twenty pages of the issue.

 

Format

How many average pages per issue? Did it use colour?  How much?  Photography? How much?  How are images used?  Do they illustrate stories or article?  If there are illustrations, how do they make the magazine feel?

This issue had just over 100 pages, but the advertisements accounted for around 30% of the space. 16 pages contained colour and over half of the pictures were photos, mainly of scenic locations. Photos which focused on European locations, focused on the location itself, whereas photos related to non-European locations focused on the people’s way of life. The photos in general give a sense of European domination in nature, and this is summed up with the photos on the page 42 article entitled, “Logging among the kings”. Although the author is for the forest’s protection, the necessity of reshaping the environment for societies benefit.

 

References

Auslit. The B P Magazine. The University of Queensland.     https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/C492939

The B P Magazine. Vol. 8, no. 1, 1935. Retrieved from photos.

 

PSR on MAN Magazine

By Phoebe Hamilton

 

Image credit: https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/274578908506255780/?nic_v2=1a3TH5acs, retrieved 28 October, 2020

 Circulation:
What can you find out about the circulation of the magazine? How would you characterise the circulation--was it limited, or popular?  Can you find out if that was considered expensive? 

MAN magazine became immediately popular after its release in 1936. It was developed by Kenneth Murray who was no doubt influenced by American magazines such as Esquire. It was a monthly magazine and in its first year of circulation expanded from 5000 to 20,000; by 1946 it had grown to a circulation of 100,000. When MAN was first released it cost only two shillings which was considered a “suicidal” price. Throughout its publication it continued to be a cheap and affordable magazine.

Editor:
Does the magazine have the same editor for a range of time? Can you find out anything about this person?  What is her or her background, education, training? If the editor writes for the magazine, what kind of things does he/she write? 

Frank S. Greenop was the editor of the magazine from 1936-1955. He had a background in fictional writing and that, along with Kenneth Murray’s background in advertising, may have been the reason behind the magazine’s heavy story, cartoon, and illustrative content.

Implied Reader:
After studying thoroughly a single issue of the magazine--ads, articles, stories, everything--consider its target reader implied by the magazine’s contents: age, sex, economic class, intellectual class, race, political position, and anything else that seems important

The MAN magazine was intended for a male audience of young men. It contained many stories and cartoons which would appeal to the bachelor type and contained many explicit images of young women. It did also, however, contain educational information about world events and affairs; so, it also appealed to businessmen who prided themselves on staying informed about such matters.  

Contents:
a. In a single issue, what kind of content gets the most pages (creative: fiction, poetry, drama, visual art, music/ critical: cultural, aesthetic, social, political/ informative: travel, biography, history, news)

Most of the content in MAN were articles, both fictional and non-fictional, along with cartoons and many illustrations. It contained many risqué images of young women, and cartoons. Its plush image made it popular with the public and it employed many renowned artists, writers, and photographers to fill its pages.

b. Advertising: Ratio of advertising to other aspects of the text. What kind of advertising gets the most space? Anything else significant about advertising?

The types of items advertised within MAN magazine were modern or fashionable, it appealed to “worldly” men who had money and liked to spend it on themselves. Some examples of this are advertisements for cars, wirelesses, overseas travel, and alcohol. It rarely contained advertisements for the home, or everyday purchases.

c. If the magazine attends to social, political, or cultural issues, is there anything that helps you describe its position?  

Prior to WWII MAN magazine had an anti-war, progressive stance. Mobility and new technologies were common topics for discussion in its pages. It also often depicted women in a negative light, or as “playthings” for men. In todays society MAN magazine would surely have been seen as misogynistic and sexist rather than progressive.

Format:
How many average pages per issue? Did it use colour?  How much?  Photography? How much?  How are images used?  Do they illustrate stories or article?  If there are illustrations, how do they make the magazine feel? 

MAN magazine had colourful, glossy pages and was a stark contrast to the many black and white magazines circulating when it was first produced. It had on average 100 pages per issue and was of a high print quality. The magazine was a mixture of engaging entertaining cartoons and stories, and informative articles. 

References:

Ray, G. (2020). MAN Magazine, Published By K G Murray. [online] Collectingbooksandmagazines.com. Available at: http://www.collectingbooksandmagazines.com/man.html 

 

PSR on The Home Magazine February 1920 Issue

By Phoebe Hamilton

 

Image credit:

https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-381545445/view?partId=nla.obj-381586692#page/n0/mode/1up, retrieved 28 October 2020

 

Circulation:
What can you find out about the circulation of the magazine? How would you characterise the circulation--was it limited, or popular?  Can you find out if that was considered expensive? 

The Home magazine started as a quarterly magazine when it was first published in 1920. It then transitioned to a bi-monthly magazine in 1924, and finally a monthly magazine from 1926 until its final publication in 1942. Its increases publication was due to its rising popularity and transition from specifically targeting aspirational middle-class readers to becoming a magazine for the masses. Its first copies cost 2 shillings and sixpence, which would be roughly $7 today. It was an affordable, but not a cheap, magazine.

Editor:
Does the magazine have the same editor for a range of time? Can you find out anything about this person?  What is her or her background, education, training? If the editor writes for the magazine, what kind of things does he/she write? 

It was published from Sydney, Australia’s center for modernity, and was launched and edited by Sydney Ure Smith and in 1922 Leon Gellert assumed co-editorship.   

Implied Reader:
After studying thoroughly a single issue of the magazine--ads, articles, stories, everything--consider its target reader implied by the magazine’s contents: age, sex, economic class, intellectual class, race, political position, and anything else that seems important

This was a magazine for women of varying ages. As can be seen through the multitude of advertisements it was intended for women who had an income to spend and who were interested in being trending. It appealed to aspirational women who were socially active and aware.

Contents:
a. In a single issue, what kind of content gets the most pages (creative: fiction, poetry, drama, visual art, music/ critical: cultural, aesthetic, social, political/ informative: travel, biography, history, news)

This magazine contains a lot of advertisements, seconded by social articles. It contains some, although very few, fictional stories and is more focused on providing information and advice for its readers. 

b. Advertising: Ratio of advertising to other aspects of the text. What kind of advertising gets the most space? Anything else significant about advertising?

Most of the advertising is for feminine products such as cosmetics and clothing, or for household items. 

c. If the magazine attends to social, political, or cultural issues, is there anything that helps you describe its position? 

The Home magazine does not have clear political objectives, but it is clearly tailored for the female rather than the male reader. Its cover appeals to a female readership, as does its advertising and content.

Format:
How many average pages per issue? Did it use colour?  How much?  Photography? How much?  How are images used?  Do they illustrate stories or article?  If there are illustrations, how do they make the magazine feel?

There are roughly 80 pages in each issue. This magazine uses colour and images in an engaging way. It is an easy magazine to read with a clear content page and similarly regular reoccurring articles.  

References:

State Library. (2017, September 6). The Home (1920-42). New South Wales. https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/blogs/home-1920-42

(1920). The Home : an Australian quarterly Retrieved October 28, 2020, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-381545445

 

SSR on Tim Young’s chapter 1900-present

By Phoebe Hamilton

Complete citation:

Youngs, Tim. (2013). Chapter 5 - 1900–present. The Cambridge Introduction to Travel Writing, 68-84. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511843150.006

Image Credit: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17822271-the-cambridge-introduction-to-travel-writing, accessed 27 July 2020

Key Words: Travel writing; Modern; Travel; 20^th century; Transport; Postcolonial

Brief Overview: Detailed analysis of several interwar women’s magazines. The book attempts a close examination of their literature, articles, advertising, and art.

Summary of key points:

There are three prominent factors in travel writing: ‘the Petrol Age’ which changed people’s sense of speed, engagement with landscape, and relationship with each other; intellectual and aesthetic movements which influenced ideas of self, truth and authority, and artistic expression; and, the changing politics of ‘race’ and decolonization, as well as the rise of liberational movements, produced travel texts to challenge colonial stereotypes.

·      Car travel offered a closer view of nature and culture than that of train travel.

·    The interwar period was a unique time when modern modes of transport, such as the airplane, allowed access to before unreachable locations.

·   Travel writing was a popular form of writing for many prominent poets and authors of the early 20^th century.

·       There were fears that travel writing would push the city onto the country, polluting it.

·   The many generalisations and multiple opinions of travel writers made them unreliable sources for travelers to follow and turn to for advice.

·         Personality and storytelling were successful techniques used by travel writers during the 20^th century.

Important Quotations:

“Innovations in technologies of travel made people more aware of how their experiences were affected by the mode of transport.” (69)

“The attractions for motor enthusiasts include a greater freedom to choose one’s own route than was possible for rail passengers, and the ever-increasing distances that can be travelled while still motoring for pleasure.” (69-70)

“Many prominent modernist writers, better known for their other prose works or for their poetry, produced travel texts.” (71)

“…the growing feeling during the interwar years that tourism is making travel less authentic and less personal.” (73)

“The admission of multiple perspectives, alternative truths and realities, is accompanied by a statement on the difficulty of reaching general conclusions: ‘I thought how every safe generality I gathered in my travels was canceled by another’.”(76)

“Twentieth-century travel writing is characterised by this emphasis on the lone traveler whose observations are made to carry more force by the weight of personality.” (80)

“The later twentieth century sees the stronger emergence of a postcolonial sensibility in travel writing.” (81)

Usefulness to our group topic or individual project:

This chapter looks at the style and topics of travel writings in the early 20^th century. It would be useful for anybody looking at travelling writing during the interwar period, or somebody interested in the techniques and styles used by travel writers.

 

SSR on Justine Greenwood’s article Driving Through History

By Phoebe Hamilton

Complete citation:

Greenwood, Justine. (2011). Driving Through History: the car, The Open Road, and the making of history tourism in Australia, 1920-1940. Journal of Tourism History, 3(1), 21-37. doi: 10.1080/1755182X.2011.575954

Image Credit: http://bluemountainsheritage.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Heritage-Newsletter-Iss.-67-Mar-Apr-2020.pdf, accessed 27 October 2020

Key Words: Car tourism; Motorists; Australia, The Open Road; heritage; travel

Brief Overview: This article looks at the rise of motorist tourism in Australia during the interwar period. It discusses the popularity of the National Roads and Motorists Association (NRMA) and their journal The Open Road.

Summary of key points:

·         The car provided a means of travel across Australia in the early 20^th century. Its popularity grew during the interwar period as travelers sought to discover the landscapes and history of early colonial Australia.

·         The Open Road, a journal published by the NRMA, encouraged the exploration of Australia via automobile. It provided a platform for motor enthusiasts to share stories, maps, and advice.

·         As opposed to train travel, which became seen as unromantic, the automobile was the embodiment of modernity while still connecting travelers to history.

·         Motor tourism was about more than just the car as a mode of transport, it was the reimagined ‘horse and buggy’ of early colonial Australia and allowed the reimagination of the Australian outback in a way that the railway could not. Motorists were able to find a connection with early Australian history and ‘untouched’ areas of Australia.

Important Quotations:

“From the late nineteenth century, newspapers published articles encouraging readers to appreciate the historic points of interest their cities and towns had to offer, growing numbers of tourists sought out the relics and buildings of Australia’s convict past, and historical societies took their members on excursions in search of ‘old historic towns’”. (22)

“In the first half of the twentieth century the car was most commonly envisaged as representing the future the ultimate symbol of progress and modernity. However, for motor tourists in Australia in the 1920s and 1930s, like Canon Stretch, the car came to offer not only a promise of the future but also a way to access the past”. (22)

“With much Australian tourism in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, it was nature rather than culture that proved to be the main attraction for motor tourists”. (24) 

“Much of the NRMA’s touring advice was disseminated through The Open Road. Each fortnightly issue dedicated several pages to descriptions of possible motor touring routes and destinations”. (25)

“Although true democratisation of car ownership in Australia was not to develop until the 1950s, by the mid-1920s the reduction in prices due to the development of mass production methods, combined with Australia’s comparatively high standard of living, meant that owning a car was an attainable prospect for many of the middle class”. (27)

“Where the train had delivered the tourist straight to the attraction, the motorist was not bound by a single destination”. (28)

“Road building in the 1920s and 1930s often opened areas that had been bypassed by the railways. Motor tourists headed into the countryside and discovered towns that seemed to have remained untouched by the modern world”. (32)

“Australia could increasingly be imagined not as a dauntingly inaccessible landscape but rather one that was waiting to be explored by the tourist in his or her car”. (33) 

“By 1935 contributors to The Open Road were mourning the end of the days when driving was an adventure rather than just another form of ‘the beaten track’”. (34) 

“Les Worrall, contributor to The Open Road, summed up the feelings of many motorists when he commented, ‘railways are all right, but they are unromantic things’”. (35) 

Usefulness to our group topic or individual project:

This article is helpful for understanding the use and popularity of automobiles in Australia during the interwar period. It references a popular motor journal of the time, The Open Road, and gives information about its readers and content. It is useful for looking at modes of travel and travel destinations within Australia.  

 

SSR: ‘Dear Cinema Girls’: Girlhood, Picture-going, and the Interwar Film Magazine

By Maddison Grant

Complete citation:

Stead, L. (2018). ‘Dear cinema girls’: Girlhood, picture-going, and the interwar film magazine. In C. Clay, M. DiCenzo, B. Green, & F. Hackney (Eds.), Women's periodicals and print culture in Britain, 1918-1939: The interwar period (pp. 1-14). Edinburgh University Press.

Key Words: film magazine, fan magazine, girlhood, femininity, class, mass culture, domestic

Brief Overview:

This chapter ‘Dear Cinema Girls: Girlhood, Picture-going, and the Interwar Film Magazine’ explores how ideas of girlhood in Britain during the early twentieth century was explored and mediated through the British fan magazine.

 

Summary of key points:

• Fan film magazines evolved from story magazines from the 1910s into multi-feature media by the late teens, and(that) increasingly emulated the format of woman’s magazines as a means of addressing an increasing female audience.
  
  
• Film magazines were a distinct genre within film writing during this period, with women-centered film magazines offering a direct view on women’s experiences of modernity; where popular culture, public life, and debates about women, home, duty, and domesticity intersected.
   
•      Much of  the magazines content was aimed at young readers, particularly the girl reader who, during this period, was a figure aged anywhere from ten years old to mid-twenties. It targeted working-class and middle-class schoolgirls, as well as working girls employed in factories, mills, and commerce. 
   
• The cinema-going girl of the this period (teens, 1920s, 1930s) is found across a range of print media thus, fan magazines were part of a wide range of media discourses that constructed images of the cinema-going girl and the girl on screen.
   
• Concerns did surround this figure during the period with the young film fan perceived as vulnerable and gullible, and cinema being a notable target for these concerns.  Film magazines were also viewed as part of the problem, however, to the young women who read these magazines they had genuine value, and by taking film and female cinema culture seriously these papers offered some challenges to the image of girl fans as mindless consumers and cinema as intellectually damaging.
   
•   These magazines emphasized their participatory structures and encouraged debate and deconstruction of star images, allowing female audiences  to assemble non-domestic representation in order to work through the changing relationships between traditional and modern forms of girlhood. 
   
• Film magazines can be viewed as ‘multi-track’ media, combining writing, illustrations, photographs, and different fonts and formats thus allowing readers access to representations of stars through not only images but through other forms such as interviews, advertisement, and stories.
   
• A particular magazine discourse that used these multitrack qualities was tie-in stories that focused on girl heroines, such as the ‘tomboy’ whose image of girlhood expanded the boundaries of acceptable feminine behavior.
   
• There were widespread anxieties during the interwar period concerning modern girls becoming like men and pushing the boundaries of traditional femininity through their presence as workers and consumers, through their leisure and activities, and through the adoption of more androgynous styles; factors all embodied by new girl screen-stars.
   
• Film magazines negotiated, uneasily, conservative and traditional ideals about marriage, domesticity and heterosexual partnership while also sharing space with more radical representations of modern, youthful femininity.
  
  
• Girlhood could be understood as an area and time of independence before marriage and female stars ability to keep and continue this identity and play characters defined as ‘girl’ while also being wives, mothers, and businesswomen made them unique role models.
   
• Girl stars could maintain this image, the girl reader could not. However, readers could use and engage with the tools stars used to achieve this, they were invited to build composite identities, styles, and ways of understanding themselves as girls, inspired by magazines and their inter-medial qualities.

 

 

 Important Quotations:

•  “They [film magazines] marketed themselves as pop-culture artefacts, self-consciously feminised, offering a strong contrast to the highbrow and experimental film writings of journals such as Close Up (1927–33), and the critical commentary of newspaper film writing from popular British critics such as C. A. Lejeune or Walter Mycroft.” (Stead, 2018, p. 2)
   
• “The value of film culture for shaping and reflecting upon women’s experience of modernity was taken seriously by both the creators and consumers of these papers. Within their pages, we find detailed explorations of the home lives and domestic identities of female stars, both Hollywood and European, alongside advertising for cosmetics, women’s clothing, and domestic products, presenting readers with fashion, etiquette, and homemaking advice learned from the movies.” (p. 2)
   
• “Representations of girlhood within these papers were built predominantly around young, and largely American female star images, but they were also constructed through particular uses of the specific tools and techniques of magazine media. The film paper blended photographs, film stills, and illustrations with prose, storytelling, and advertising, and scattered representations of its stars across these varied platforms, breaking apart the sense of a gendered star identity as stable or singular. Film periodicals thus invited readers into a complex and unstable network of film-inflected girlhoods.” (p. 2-3)
   
• “As such, reading the interwar film magazine is one way of rereading the narrative of ‘home and duty’, complicating a domestic ideal by offsetting more glamorous images and alternative possibilities of modern femininity against more conservative discourses on domesticity and female identity. The print cultures of film affected ideas about girlhood, class, and mass culture in this way, allowing their readers to simultaneously assign, test out, and in some ways rewrite girls’ culturally ascribed domestic roles.” (p. 3)
   
• “The ‘film-struck’ girl was at the centre of a network of media soliciting her attention, time, and money. Popular culture exploited such dreams of stardom, and capitalised on the glamorous appeal of the screen, whilst the female cinema-goer simultaneously found herself subject to cultural concerns about the lowbrow reputation and potentially damaging effects of both movies and cinema environments that threatened to disrupt a more conservative, domesticated image of youthful femininity.” (p. 3)
   
•  “The meanings that both the magazines and their participating readers assign to the term ‘girl’ are fluid, but there is a particular emphasis upon girlhood as a period of experimentation, using film stars to test out and try on potential articulations of future womanhood. The broader interwar environment focused on the image of the housewife as an emblem of postwar national culture, equating womanhood with heterosexual partnership, domesticity, and retirement from paid labour: but within film-fan discourses, both girlhood and womanhood were configured in unstable and contradictory ways that unsettled a clear-cut affirmation of more traditional gender norms.” (p. 7)
   
• “One particular thread of magazine discourse that played upon these multitrack qualities, and their ability to turn young female identity into a multiple and layered image, was the inclusion of tie-in stories focused on girl heroines.” (p. 8)
   
• “In depicting tomboy characters, they created a fantasy space in which to play around, however superficially, with the ‘girl’ identity. Yet, to return to Peg’s story [a serial from…]: like so many of her counterpart serial heroines, the girl protagonist is destined for heterosexual partnership by the conclusion of the narrative, setting aside her earlier high jinks to marry the male lead, at which point the narrative concludes.” (p. 10)
   
• “Yet narrative resolution does not necessarily cancel out the more playful or disruptive aspects of narrative process in these girl-centred texts. The intermedial qualities of the paper, where its pages cross the borders between media in the inclusion of prose, illustrations, and photography, went some way to disrupt these resolutions. Multiple female identities for any given characterisation remained in play, sustained beyond the reader’s engagement with the story as a single unit in the larger tapestry of the magazine.” (p. 11)
   
• “Engaging with tie-in fiction specifically within the film magazine thus allowed girls to encounter new negotiations of the otherwise seemingly irresolvable conflict between the liberties of girlhood and the restriction of marriage and domesticity through the multiple and varied images of characters and stars.” (p. 11)
   
• “British fan magazines’ handling of girl stars, or stars with notable girl-inflected star images, seemingly dealt with these contradictions by simply multiplying them, offering them to readers for selection and resignification in the process of consuming the mixed representations of the magazine format. Such a proliferation of alternative and contradictory representations of gendered duty and identity thus in some ways troubled the broader narrative of postwar return to domesticity.” (p. 12)
  
  
• “The particular qualities of the magazine as multitrack media thus meant that readers could interact with stars as composite of girl/woman representations, both potentially subversive and more conservative, traditional and modern.” (p. 12)
   
• “Fan magazines therefore answered back to the reductive stereotype of the cinema- going girl by presenting themselves as a toolkit for learning about new fashions and trends, and a platform for girls to debate their own ideas about girlhood and film culture through the participatory structures of these texts.” (p. 12)

 

PSR 3: Primary Source Report on The Home Magazine Vol 18 No. 1 January 1937 

 Advertisement for Burns Philp Shipping line (The Home, 1937, p.2)

Circulation

What can you find out about the circulation of the magazine? How would you characterise the circulation--was it limited, or popular?  Can you find out if that was considered expensive?

At 1/3p, The Home compares favourably with other magazines of the period. When the quality of content is taken into consideration, it appears to give good value for money, possibly made achievable at the price by the large volume of adverting, it contain, which may represent the periodical’s main source of revenue.

 Editor

Does the magazine have the same editor for a range of time? Can you find out anything about this person?  What is her or her background, education, training? If the editor writes for the magazine, what kind of things does he/she write?

 This edition of Home Magazine was co-edited by Sydney Ure Smith and Leon Gellert. Smith had founded the magazine in 1920, and Gellert joined him as co-editor and a director in 1922 after the death of Smith’s original partner, Bertram Stevens.

Smith was born in Stoke Newington, London, on January 9 1887. After his family emigrated to Australia in 1889, he studied at Queen’s College, St. Kilda, and then Sydney Grammar School after his father, John Smith, was made Manager of the Hotel Australia in Sydney. While at Sydney Grammar he produced ‘the Kat’ and ‘Australia Kat”, gossip broadsheets aimed at the hotel’s clients. In 1902 he attended the Sydney Art School, specialising in pen and pencil drawing.

 Smith pioneered the incorporation of quality art and design into print culture as the founding principle of an advertising agency he started with cartoonist Harry Julius, ‘Smith and Julius’. As editor and publisher, he brought this technology to the pages of The Home, which prided itself on ‘good taste in contemporary architecture, interior design, photography and graphic design.’

 Smith resigned from magazines in 1938, leaving Gellert as sole editor until the magazine closed in 1942. He died in Potts Point, Sydney in 1949.

Gellert was born in Walkerville, South Australia on 17 May 1892. Described as a ‘soldier, poet and journalist’, he trained as a teacher before studying modern European History and English literature at the University of Adelaide. He then taught physical Education at Hindmarsh Public School, until enlisting in the Army at the outbreak of hostilities in 1914. He was wounded by shrapnel during the Gallipoli landing, and while convalescing he was diagnosed with epilepsy and discharged medically unfit on 30 June 1916.

While on embarkation, he started writing poetry, publishing The Isle of San containing 120 of his poems in 1919, with the Theme ‘Youth’s eternal awakening to the failure of ideals’.

Gellert did contribute literary to other magazines after his tenure with The Home, but his contribution to The Home appears to have been purely as an editor.

Gellert passed away in Toorak Gardens, Adelaide in 1977 (Souter n.d.)

 

Implied Reader

After studying thoroughly a single issue of the magazine--ads, articles, stories, everything--consider its target reader implied by the magazine’s contents: age, sex, economic class, intellectual class, race, political position, and anything else that seems important

 The implied reader of The Home appears to be female, comfortably white middle and upper class, with the middle-class reader aspiring for upward social mobility (Kuttainen, Liebich, and Galletly, 2020, pp. 4-5). The literary tone and topics would appeal to someone reasonably well read, probably with conservative views and political opinions. Women of all ages would find value in this magazine.

 Contents

a.      In a single issue, what kind of content gets the most pages (creative: fiction, poetry, drama, visual art, music/ critical: cultural, aesthetic, social, political/ informative: travel, biography, history, news)

Second only to advertising, Social articles and photographs dominate the content of this issue, with seven pages devoted to ‘Social notes’, and ten for photographs. There are twelve stories and articles, a fashion article and five dealing with house and garden. There does not appear to be any content of a political nature.

 b. Advertising: Ratio of advertising to other aspects of the text. What kind of advertising gets the most space? Anything else significant about advertising?

 Approximately 30 pages (37.5%) are devoted to advertising, supporting the premise that advertising was a major source of revenue for the publication. There are 17 full page ads, with six advertising travel.

 If the magazine attends to social, political, or cultural issues, is there anything that helps you describe its position? 

 High brow culture, and socialites and celebrities grace the pages of this issue. Cultural themes include Ballet, some light-hearted poetry, fiction by notable contemporary authors such as Katherine Susannah Prichard, and exclusive sporting clubs. Articles such as ‘Air Mail Notes from London’, by ‘Princess Troubetsky’, exemplify the high brow tone of the social pages, while the ‘Social and personal’ pages deal mainly with the activities of upper class figures, which supports the premise that this magazine would appeal to those seeking social elevation, and those who are ‘already there’.

 Format

How many average pages per issue? Did it use colour?  How much?  Photography? How much?  How are images used?  Do they illustrate stories or article?  If there are illustrations, how do they make the magazine feel?The Home comprises an average of 80 pages. In this issue, there are some colour illustrations, mainly adorning advertisements, of which there are six full page and one quarter page plates, and a full-page colour painting of a socialite. Articles are illustrated with two or three tone colours. The illustrations invoke a feeling that this is a quality publication.

References

Gavin Souter, 'Gellert, Leon Maxwell (1892–1977)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gellert-leon-maxwell-10288/text18201, published first in hardcopy 1996, accessed online 24 October 2020.

Kuttainen, Liebich, and Galletly,. "Transported Imagination-Introduction" James Cook University 2020. Web. 21 August 2020.

 

PSR 2: Primary Source Report Sunset: The Pacific Monthly, December 1921, Vol. 46 No. 6

 

PSR 2: Primary Source Report

Sunset: The Pacific Monthly, December 1921, Vol. 46 No. 6

 Mark Bradley

Circulation

The Sunset magazine was originally called the Southern Pacific Railroad and began publication in 1898 for use by and promotion of the Southern Pacific Railroad in the Western United States. In 1914, the magazines name changed to Sunset and its contents modified to capture a national audience. Around the time of this issues publication in 1921, the magazine slowly grew unprofitable, implying a decreasing circulation. The price for this issue was 25 US cents, which is US $3.50 today, and reflected a general price for a general interest publication of the time.

Editor

Little is known about the “series of owners and publishers since 1898” (Pagano 6), until Lawrence Lane purchased the failing magazine in 1928. This 1921 issue is an example of the kind of general interest magazine material about the West which was transformed by Lane into a popular magazine about living in the West.

Implied Reader

The Sunset magazine in 1921 catered to both male and female adults, specifically middle class suburban parents and those aspiring to taste the upper class lifestyle. The material infers a patriotic reader, interested in the Western United States.

Contents

The material was about the Western United States, focusing on current affairs, fictional stories and verse; over half of the magazines contents is fiction. Advertisements are littered throughout, except for a 35% block of current affairs and fictional stories, which have no advertisements on their pages. The lack of advertisements may signify the importance of the patriotic topics within.

Most advertisements are targeting the suburban family of practical means and reflect the magazine changes Lane made in 1928. The current affairs and stories found in this issue do not relate to most of the advertisements and would not until the magazine was changed to a home and travel magazine of practical advice. Advertisement sizes seem to reflect the amount paid, as they range in size regardless of the products value. As this is a December issue, there are small to medium advertisements scattered throughout for boys and girls Christmas presents.

Format

This issue had 90 pages, with only a few pages colourized. The cover page and the last page with a full advertisement is fully colourized, while the remaining few coloured story pictures and advertisements are of only partial and soft colour, such as a red uniform or a pink and gold hand cream bottle, reflecting the amount paid for the advertisement.

References

Pagano, Jennifer H. “The evolution of Sunset Magazine's cooking department: The

accommodation of men's and women's cooking in the 1930s”. Retrieved from scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/uop_etds/3575/

Sunset | AustLit: Discover Australian Stories. Austlit.edu.au. (2020). Retrieved from

www-austlit-edu-au.elibrary.jcu.edu.au/austlit/page/6868316