The American Home was a continuation of the magazine
Garden & Home Builder. Ellen Diffin Wangner edited the first issues, October 1928 to March 1929. William Herbert Eaton, its circulation manager, became publisher in 1932. He bought the magazine in 1935, Under Eaton, the magazine was refocused toward the
upper middle class reader, leaving the higher end of the home market to fellow Doubleday magazine
Country Life, which Eaton also bought. By 1953,
The American Home had a paid circulation of over 3 million, and reached a peak circulation of 3.7 million in 1962. As part of its desire to move out of mass circulation publications, Curtis sold the magazine in 1968 to
Downe Communications. John Mack Carter purchased it in 1973, and it was acquired in late 1975 by the
Charter Company. In 1975
Charter Company president and chairman
Raymond K. Mason installed
Leda Sanford as president, publisher and
editor-in-chief with a mandate to reposition the magazine and stem losses by attracting new readership. Sanford was the first female publisher of a national American
magazine. Her goal was to maintain a
circulation of 2.5 million and appeal to newly liberated
women. She said she wanted the magazine to “speak intelligently to the
college-educated and informed woman,” telling the targeted reader how to “run her
home with flair, beauty and pizzazz.” The publication saw slight gains, but not enough to save what the
New York Times referred to as a “fixture on the American
publishing scene.” After several years of losses, and in an era that saw the closure of the mass circulation magazines
Life,
Look, and
The Saturday Evening Post, the last issue of
American Home, with a cover date of February 1978, was published in late 1977. It was then merged with the Charter magazine
Redbook. == See also ==