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Bok, Edward William, 1863-1930

"A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After"


Edward Bok has always felt that but for his own inability to secure an
education, and his consequent desire for self-improvement, the
realization of the need in others might not have been so strongly felt
by him, and that his plan whereby thousands of others were benefited
might never have been realized.
It was this comprehensive personal service, built up back of the
magazine from the start, that gave the periodical so firm and unique a
hold on its clientele. It was not the printed word that was its chief
power: scores of editors who have tried to study and diagnose the
appeal of the magazine from the printed page, have remained baffled at
the remarkable confidence elicited from its readers. They never looked
back of the magazine, and therefore failed to discover its secret. Bok
went through three financial panics with the magazine, and while other
periodicals severely suffered from diminished circulation at such
times, _The Ladies' Home Journal_ always held its own. Thousands of
women had been directly helped by the magazine; it had not remained an
inanimate printed thing, but had become a vital need in the personal
lives of its readers.


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