Ladies' Pages: African American Women's Magazines and the Culture That Made Them

by Noliwe M. Rooks

Beginning in the late nineteenth century, mainstream magazines established ideal images of white female culture, while comparable African American periodicals were cast among the shadows. Noliwe M. Rooks’s Ladies’ Pages sheds light on the most influential African American women’s magazines–– Ringwood’s Afro-American Journal of Fashion, Half-Century Magazine for the Colored Homemaker, Tan Confessions, Essence, and O, the Oprah Magazine ––and their little-known success in shaping the lives of black women.

Ladies’ Pages demonstrates how these rare and thought-provoking publications contributed to the development of African American culture and the ways in which they in turn reflect important historical changes in black communities. What African American women wore, bought, consumed, read, cooked, and did at home with their families were all fair game, and each of the magazines offered copious amounts of advice about what such choices could and did mean. At the same time, these periodicals helped African American women to find work and to develop a strong communications network. Rooks reveals in detail how these publications contributed to the concepts of black sexual identity, rape, migration, urbanization, fashion, domesticity, consumerism, and education.  Her book is essential reading for everyone interested in the history and culture of African Americans.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Fashion

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Stephani · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book deals with more than just the lost history of African American women's magazines. It deals with classism and colorism among African Americans, as well as the negative effects of African Americans buying into capitalism/consumerism and then turning around and selling it to their sisters and brothers ("Want a better life? Then buy this! Buy that!")

The book also especially with post-tramatic slavery syndrome (what the author calls the "soul murder" perpetrated on the survivors of slavery and its lingering effects for generations afterward) and how it manifests itself in these early publications. The trauma of surviving slavery and its multitude of accompanying atrocities -- especially rape -- and the stuggle to hide the wounds rather than deal with them openly is silently present especially in the earliest Black women's magazine discussed in the book, but it's a current that runs through later publications as well.

The discussion of these issues made Ladies' Pages enlightening reading, especially for me as an African American woman. Unfortunately, the book should have given more details -- and especially photos -- of all the pre-Essence magazines the author dug up, especially the magazine financed by Madam C.J. Walker that she mentioned. This magazine was published for 15 years, and Fisk University found two years of issues in their archives, but she doesn't devote a chapter of her book to it as she does with some other magazines that weren't around as long.

Also, the author should have discussed Essence in a little more detail. Essence didn't go from being a Black Power-inspired publication to fluff all of the sudden, like she seems to portray. I was a subscriber in the 1990s, and Essence was not just another shallow women's magazine. Any magazine that let one of its editors come out as a lesbian in its pages couldn't be! Unfortunately, I've heard from a couple of sources that since Essence became fully owned by Time, Inc. it has definitely gone down the tubes.

In the end, what's there in this short book (about 150 pages) is great, but it needs more -- more text and especially more photos. I want to see more of these early magazines by and for women like me, even with their flaws. I do recommend it for anybody who's interested in women's and race issues as well as history nonetheless.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

bought this book because she talks extensively about one of the magazines I studied for my thesis. The book did not disappoint, but she didn't answer all the questions I still have about the Half-Century. Probably best for history nerds.

[Ruth Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely interesting!