The Geography of an American Icon: An Analysis of the Circulation of the Saturday Evening Post, 1911–1944

Abstract

This article argues that regional variations in audiences have played an important and generally unexplored role in journalism history. Its geographic analysis of the reading patterns of the Saturday Evening Post in 1911, 1920, 1928, 1935, and 1944 finds strong areas of readership in the Western United States and low readership in the South. The pattern of the Post closely resembles that of another Curtis Publishing Company magazine, the Ladies' Home Journal, during a similar time period. Post readership also showed a correlation with such demographic areas as literacy rates, race, family size, income, and ownership of household appliances. The article argues that a consistent geographic and demographic pattern of readership over more than three decades suggests a deeper, more complex relationship between the Post and its audience than one created solely by editorial content. It reinforces the idea of Post readers as well-to-do white urbanites. Yet it shows that Post readership was far more complex than the notion that “everybody read the Post” (a common implication through the years). The circulation distribution of the Post was indeed mass in number, but with many regional variations.