The Magazines C ontrary to what many may think, Fashion Plates date to the 18th and 17th Centuries and were not just a 19th Century commodity. Mrs. Sarah J. Hale, based on this fact. The rest is history. So prized were the monthly issues that the majority of ladies at year's end would take the magazines to her local book seller or stationers to have them bound in book form.
Most surviving volumes are of the bound variety.
Godey's Lady's Book was born in Philadelphia in July of 1830 and would reign as the supreme women's magazine for approximately sixty-eight years. This is what made many a 19th Century housewife's life exciting in her idle hours - dreaming of the fashions and far away places that the 19th Century women's subscription magazine would bring to her doorstep each month. With a penchant for books, and the first money he was able to scrape together, he opened a combined newsstand and bookshop. This did not suit her and she began to write poetry - and with the publication of a novel, Northwood , in 1827, success was eminent.