The Saline County Journal

WOMEN EDITORS.

Some Who Command High Salaries and Have Attained Distinction.

It would make a long list simply to enumerate the names of women who sit in the editorial chairs of magazines. Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge went from a successful literary career to the office of St. Nicholas. Ella Farman Pratt takes an occasional part in making up Wide Awake. Of the fashion periodicals there is no better edited publication of any kind in the country than Harper's Bazar, of which Mrs. Mary L. Booth, and in her absence Mrs. S. S. Conant, has full control. Jennie June has a half ownership in Godey's Lady's Book and is supreme in the editorial room. Mme. Demorest has but just retired from the business control of the magazine bearing her name. The widow of Peterson, the Philadelphia publisher, has taken Peterson's Magazine into her own hands, both editorially and financially. The Ladies' World pays the woman at its head $5,000 a year, and the new dress reform magazine Dress, if Mrs. Jenness Miller will allow it to be classed with fashion publications, is in part owned and wholly managed by its editor, who is putting a good deal of fresh talent into its early issues. Mrs. Laura Holloway edits the Home Library Magazine and the Woman's Argosy, new Chicago ventures, which promise large success. Mrs. Josephine Redding edits two decorative art magazines very ably, and the housekeeping magazines are in swarms. Of a more serious class of publications, Mrs. Martha J. Lamb has increased the circulation and made the reputation of the Magazine of American History, and Miss Jeannette Gilder commands unlimited respect for her work on the Critic. Philanthropic publications of all sorts are in feminine hands. Edward Everett Hale's Lend a Hand is largely directed by a woman, and the list, not of women who supply matter for departments, but who are in editorial or business control, or both, of periodicals of some size and standing could be prolonged at some length.

Many of the large publishing houses say that women make the best readers of manuscript, and the same qualities that make feminine talent available there, together with some tact and business judgment, make good editors of them also. Their periodicals almost invariably are good business properties, and are nicely adjusted to the exact clientage they are meant to reach. Jennie June says women like editorial work, and editorial work thus far seems to like them also.—N. Y. Letter.