Flooded Home

Last week subscribers to The American Home failed to get their copies of the April issue. Five years ago such an irregularity would have occasioned little surprise, for oldtime readers could recall one summer when the struggling sheet omitted two entire issues. Such an omission today, with The American Home one of the most valuable publishing properties in a thriving field, would be unheard of. To each of the disappointed subscribers the publisher himself hastened to explain:

"Unprecedented flood conditions are responsible. . . . Part of the magazine is printed in Chicago and part in Philadelphia. Several carloads en route from Chicago to Philadelphia were caught in the flood area of Pennsylvania. ... It has been necessary for us to go back to press and reprint. . . ."

Within three days all of The American Home's 800,000 readers were happily perusing the April number, contentedly aware that nothing short of an Act of God could delay the appearance of The American Home as it is now conducted.

Back of this metamorphosis from indigent irregularity to smart success lay a story of shrewd publishing enterprise. In 1932 Nelson Doubleday of the house of Doubleday, Doran groaned, in anguish when he surveyed the unbalanced balance sheets of The American Home and its stylish cousin, Country Life. Together the magazines were losing him nearly $60,000 a month, and of this the greater share was chargeable to The American Home, 10-c- home-furnishing monthly founded in 1928.

To Mr. Doubleday's surprise, his own circulation manager, William Herbert ("Doc") Eaton stepped up with a scheme to lease the two big losers, share profits with the parent concern if & when profits should appear. On money borrowed from West Virginia Pulp & Paper Co., Mr. Eaton then took over the magazines, carried them from Doubleday, Doran's Garden City, N. Y. printing house to Manhattan. With him went Adman Henry Jones and Country Life's socialite editor, Reginald Townsend Townsend.

To edit The American Home, Mr. Eaton shrewdly selected blonde, energetic young Mrs. Jean Austin, able Doubleday, Doran underling. Mrs. Austin gave The American Home the editorial slant which shot it to success.

Leaving the luxury field to Country Life and its glossy rivals, Editor Austin concentrated on the sort of editorial features which would appeal to home-owners and would-be home-owners of lesser incomes. She posed for photographs to illustrate practical articles on cooking and home decoration. She published helpful hints for cultivators of small, suburban gardens. She went into the details of furnishing a family camp. Housewives were instructed on combining a guest room and study,were told what an espalier fruit tree is and how unpretentious Anne Morrow Lindbergh's aerial wardrobe contains one pair of shoes "suitable to wear at balls and dinners, and also at teas and receptions and also for semi-sport dresses and also for bedroom slippers." At all times Mrs. Austin keeps in mind the principle that most readers of homemaking magazines want their editors & writers to give them hard-headed working advice on everyday homemaking problems, not costly theories on how rich people do it.

Meantime burly, aggressive "Doc" Eaton was loudly calling The American Home's soaring circulation to the enthusiastic attention of advertisers. While this encouraging state of affairs was in the making, Publisher Eaton and Editor Austin gradually took over the Country Life organization, squeezed out Editor Townsend. Last autumn they purchased the two magazines outright from Doubleday, Doran for $750,000, now rule Country Life-American Home Corp. jointly, both as business partners and as man & wife.

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