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Empire, Not until it turned into the 20th Century did the U. S. magazine business start swelling to mammoth proportions. At the root of that amazing growth was Cyrus Curtis who developed advertising as a sort of huge hydro-electric system to drive the wheels of the publishing business. What Henry Ford did for automobiles, Cyrus Curtis did for magazines— and they both waxed very, very rich. Today the House of Curtis towers so high above all others that there is no room for comparison.
In 1929 Curtis collected $73,000,000 from advertisers. Even in 1930 after the slump, Mr. Curtis's $67,000,000 was more than double the revenue of any other group. The Saturday Evening Post, for which Editor George Horace Lorimer gathered the world's largest circulation (today: 2,900,000), alone accounted for $47,000,000 while Mr. Curtis's Ladies' Home Journal stood second with $15,000,000. The nearest any other magazine came was Good Housekeeping's $12,000,000. By last year Curtis Publishing Co.'s net profits were down to $5,500,000. But in 1929 they were four times that much.
Mr. Curtis had already made his monumental success in magazines when he decided to try newspapers. He failed to repeat. The Curtis-Martin newspapers, Philadelphia Public Ledger, Evening Ledger, Inquirer, and the New York Evening Post comprise a weak point in the Curtis frontiers. Nevertheless they strengthened Publisher Curtis's position as head of the first family of Philadelphia. When Son-in-law Edward William Bok resigned the editorship of Mr. Curtis's Ladies' Home Journal the family turned from money-making to social service, music, peace. Cultural Mr. Bok founded and conducted his American Foundation, gave yearly prizes for outstanding service to the city. In Philadelphia Mrs. Bok founded and still heads the Curtis Institute of Music. She is chairman of the opera, director of the orchestra association, and a generous donor to Philadelphia museums and charities. The empire left by Cyrus Curtis was as brilliant socially as it was professionally and financially.
Heirs. No doubt it will always be called Curtis Publishing Co. But when Cyrus, aged 83. died, the family name was buried with him. An only son. he had no sons. In 1875 he married Louisa Knapp who started Ladies' Home Journal. She bore him one daughter, Mary Louise, who grew up to marry Editor Bok. and in turn to bear him two sons. Curtis & Gary. Less than six months after his first wife died in 1910, Publisher Curtis married his second cousin, Mrs. Kate Stanwood Cutter Pillsbury, widow of a Milwaukee lumberman. She died a year ago. This second marriage was childless, but "Cousin Kate" already had three daughters, one of whom married John Charles Martin.
Publisher Curtis took a great fancy to Stepson-in-law Martin, soon lifted him out of the Milwaukee machinery business to manage his Public Ledger. Young Mr. Martin made good. Eventually he was given charge of all Curtis newspapers. His life was insured for $6,500,000. He raised a family of five, in a house across the road from Lyndon, the Curtis estate in Wyncote. Pa. And he became known on the outside as the "crown prince" of the Curtis organization.