Cyrus Curtis

Revolutionized mass-market publishing by creating America's first national magazine empire

Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar Curtis (1850–1933) transformed media consumption through innovative publishing strategies. His Curtis Publishing Company launched The Ladies' Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post, reaching unprecedented circulations of over 3 million copies by 1913.

Unlike contemporaries focusing on elite audiences, Curtis pioneered:

• Affordable subscription models (10¢ per issue)
• National advertising networks
• Content blending practical advice with fiction

His Saturday Evening Post became cultural bedrock, discovering authors like F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Curtis Building in Philadelphia housed revolutionary rotary presses enabling mass production.

Despite starting as a $3/week newspaper seller, Curtis built a $5M/year empire (equivalent to $140M today). He championed women readers through The Ladies' Home Journal, empowering female voices in media decades before suffrage.