Curtis
Overview
The Curtis group is of interest as one of the US print behemoths that influenced US culture and politics prior to 1950 but failed to last the distance.
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Chronology
This chronology is indicative only. Context is provided by the broader communications and media timeline.
1771 Pennsylvania Packet founded by Philadelphia printer John Dunlap
1776 Dunlap prints first copies of US Declaration of Independence
1784 Packet renamed Daily Advertiser and becomes first daily newspaper in US
1800 Daily Advertiser sold to Zachariah Poulson
1801 Alexander Hamilton launches New York Evening Post
1836 Philadelphia Public Ledger founded
1850 Daily Advertiser absorbed by The North American
1857 The Philadelphia Press founded
1872 Cyrus Hermann Curtis founds Boston The People's Ledger
1879 founds Philadelphia Tribune & Farmer
1883 spins off Tribune womens column as The Ladies' Journal (later Ladies' Home Journal) under editorship of son-in-law, Edward W Bok)
1883 Edward Bok founds Brooklyn Magazine (later Cosmopolitan)
1886 Bok founds The Bok Syndicate Press
1889 James Elverson buys controlling interest in Philadelphia Inquirer
1889 Bok becomes editor of Ladies' Home Journal
1890 The Sporting Review (later Sportsmen's Review) founded
1890 Curtis founds Curtis Publishing Company
1892 Ladies' Home Journal refuses ads for patent medicine
1897 Curtis buys Pennsylvania Gazette (renamed Saturday Evening Post) for US$1,000
1909 Saturday Evening Post circulation reaches one million copies per week
1911 buys Country Gentleman
1911 Curtis Publishing establishes first US publishing market research unit
1913 Saturday Evening Post circulation reaches two million copies per week
1913 Curtis buys Philadelphia Public Ledger from Adolph Ochs
1920 buys Philadelphia Press, forms Curtis-Martin Newspapers
1924 buys New York Evening Post
1926 North American merges with Philadelphia Public Ledger as The Public Ledger & North American
1930 Curtis buys Philadelphia Inquirerfor US$10.5m
1931 Inquirer merges with Public Ledger and Evening Ledger
1932 Curtis-Martin sells Inquirer back to Patenotre family (which sells to Annenberg in 1936 for US$10.8m)
1933 New York Evening Post becomes tabloid
1934 New York Evening Post sold by Curtis-Martin to David Stern of the Philadelphia Record and retitled New York Post
1937 Saturday Evening Post circulation reaches three million copies per week
1938 launches Jack and Jill for Children
1943 spins off National Analysts as research service
1946 launches Holiday
1946 founds The Curtis Circulation Company
1949 Saturday Evening Post circulation reaches four million copies per week
1953 Wonder Books acquired by joint venture with Grosset & Dunlap
1954 Saturday Evening Post circulation reaches five million copies per week
1956 Sportsmen's Review becomes Trap & Field
1958 Trap & Field bought by Indianapolis industrialist Beurt SerVaas
1961 Saturday Evening Post circulation reaches seven million copies per week
1969 Saturday Evening Post folds
1970 Saturday Evening Post title and assets sold to Beurt SerVaas
1970 Booz Allen & Hamilton buys National Analysts
1981 Curtis Management Group founded to licence publicity rights
1982 ownership of Saturday Evening Post transferred to Benjamin Franklin Literary & Medical Society
1986 Ladies Home Journal title bought by Meredith