Prudence Penny is a lady registered in the United States Patent Office, or rather she is several ladies whose name is thus registered. Prudence is one of the ways in which Mr. Hearst collects pennies by the million. In the words of one of Mr. Hearst's full page blurbs : " 'Mother Prudence,' 'Aunt Prudence,' 'Sister Prudence' they call her. She is all that and more." She is a walking dictionary, a "Confidanté of thousands," an expert in all the household arts, past master in how to keep husbands, children and a figure. In short she is an institution through which Mr. Hearst dispenses good advice, human kindness, and valuable aid in exchange for the good will of prospective newspaper buyers.
She is not a new institution, but as a major development she is recent. Mr. Hearst has a number of Prudences in different parts of the country. Prudence has been in Manhattan for a little over a year. But she has been so great a success, that her department of the paper was enlarged and she was given full page advertising. The Prudence of Manhattan may be taken as a large scale type of all Prudences in describing this tremendous development of the personal touch in journalism.
She is Mrs. Mabelle A. Burbridge, a widow of 42, assisted by a daughter of 24. Formerly she lived in California and was editor and business manager of The Pacific Fancier, a poultry paper. In November, 1922, she took up her work with Mr. Hearst in Manhattan, giving advice on things valuable to women, both by article and by letter. In the words of the blurb "Prudence's reaction to each letter is individual in itself. . , . Come to Prudence with confidence! Your letter is not departmentalized, rubber stamped, or form-letter-answered. If you have never received a letter from Prudence Penny, you have a sweet experience before you."
In her first year some 70,000 people had this sweet experience. Letters come to Prudence at the rate of about 500 a day. From four to eight assistants are kept busy answering the letters. They are equipped with leaflets of advice on many subjects which can be used as the main part of many answers—leaflets on Party Suggestions, on Hope Chest and Trousseau, on Baby's Welfare—Diets up to 2 Years, on Reducing Weight—Diets and Baths, on Lifting Sagging Face, on Restoring Gray Hair. The whole gamut of human affairs from the cradle to the coffin is provided for in good advice. And in one year of this service Mr. Hearst befriended, and doubtless gained the valuable good will of 70,000 Gothamites, a number that in itself would produce a very respectable circulation for many a newspaper.
Meanwhile Mother Prudence, the very model of a professional good-woman, tries out recipes, tries out the devices which are advertised next to her columns so that she can vouch for them. She even personally sees or visits some of the most desperate cases of poverty and misfortune. Out of the goodness of her heart she hospitably invites you (again in the words of the blurb) :