Before Cosmo, There was Godey’s

The new nation's first “unisex” periodical, Gentlemen and Ladies' Country Magazine, began in 1784, the year after the American Revolution ended. It included articles specifically for women and requested submissions by women writers.

In May of that year, Judith Sargent Murray a member of the Massachusetts elite, submitted an article on women's rights to Gentlemen and Ladies.' The piece was published under the pen name “Constantia.” Her essay asserted women's rationality over stereotypes of their intellectual inferiority and demanded greater opportunities for women's education. By 1792, Murray had launched two essay series for Massachusetts Magazine under a male pen name, “The Gleaner,” in which she continued to assert her feminist ideology.

Between the first publication of Gentlemen and Ladies' and the Civil War, 25 women's magazines were in circulation throughout the country. The vast majority of these publications were bound by the social restrictions of the time, publishing mostly articles “fit” for a female audience: fashion, recipes, poetry, marriage and childrearing advice, and the like. Consequently, these periodicals aided in the formulation of a distinct women's culture in the new Republic.