Origins
Founded in 1956, the first issue hit the newsstands in May 1957, with Elvis Presley on the cover. It was published quarterly. The cost was 15 cents an issue. The magazine was, initially, edited by men writing under female pseudonyms, and it closely followed the style of more traditional movie magazines such as Photoplay.
However, its longtime editor in chief, former fashion model and subscriptions clerk Gloria Stavers, transformed the magazine from a standard general interest movie magazine into a major fan magazine that focused on the pre-teen female as its primary readerbase. Stavers was the editor in chief from 1958 until 1975. She chose to cater to that particular demographic because of the many fan letters she had read from girls aged nine through 12 who were writing to popular celebrities in care of the magazine. She remembered how she felt at that age, and she developed a formula as to how to increase the readership of the magazine within that demographic.
Read more about this topic: 16 Magazine
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)
“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)