Building Up a Magazine
The newspaper paragraphers were now having a delightful time with Edward
Bok and his woman's magazine, and he was having a delightful time with
them. The editor's publicity sense made him realize how valuable for his
purposes was all this free advertising. The paragraphers believed, in
their hearts, that they were annoying the young editor; they tried to
draw his fire through their articles. But he kept quiet, put his tongue
in his cheek, and determined to give them some choice morsels for their
wit.
He conceived the idea of making familiar to the public the women who
were back of the successful men of the day. He felt sure that his
readers wanted to know about these women. But to attract his newspaper
friends he labelled the series, "Unknown Wives of Well-Known Men" and
"Clever Daughters of Clever Men."
The alliterative titles at once attracted the paragraphers; they fell
upon them like hungry trout, and a perfect fusillade of paragraphs
began. This is exactly what the editor wanted; and he followed these two
series immediately by inducing the daughter of Charles Dickens to write
of "My Father as I Knew Him," and Mrs. Henry Ward Beecher, of "Mr.
Beecher as I Knew Him." Bok now felt that he had given the newspapers
enough ammunition to last for some time; and he turned his attention to
building up a more permanent basis for his magazine.
The two authors of that day who commanded more attention than any others
were William Dean Howells and Rudyard Kipling.
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