Ladies' Home Journal 125th Anniversary: Working

Working women have been on Ladies' Home Journal's radar from our inception in 1883, when female employees made up about 20 percent of the labor force, through today, when they constitute 60 percent of it. We've reported on the types of jobs deemed appropriate for women and whether their working hurt their children and marriages. During national crises, such as the depressions of the 1890s and the 1930s and two World Wars, we published articles showing how to find jobs or start businesses. Over the years opportunities burgeoned, but the debate over how to balance work and family remains to this day.

Carton Moorepark

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War Work

During both World Wars, women moved into jobs here at home that men had vacated and even served at the front as nurses. Life was "so completely changed" as a result, the magazine observed in 1917, it soon began to run articles for newly independent readers, explaining, for example, the art of driving a car. Though some women were laid off after both wars, female employment levels overall continued to climb.

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