Talk:McCall's

Betsy McCall

It would be good to have a section, or even an article on Betsy McCall IMO... in particular the paper dolls which were published in McCalls Magazine and were something of an institution of their own, and are now becoming collectible.

I notice there are now Betsy McCall dolls and that Betsy McCall is a registered trademark licensed for use by Meredith Corporation. I guess there's a story there too. There's also something at www.betsymccall.com but the site seems to be either very badly designed or busted (or maybe both). Andrewa 14:36, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Another institution was It's all in the family, which I notice has been republished, see also here, and credited to Stan Berenstain. Andrewa 21:26, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Changes Made in 2009

I became interested in McCalls after I bought a December 1957 issue at a yard sale. (I asked the dear lady who was selling it how much she wanted for it and she said "oh not very much, it only cost 35¢ to begin with." I gave her a dollar.) After reading the Wikipedia article I went through my December 1957 issue, as well as my 1976 100th Anniversary Issue, jotted down some notes, and then spent my work lunch hour editing the article. I was the first one to add references to what I wrote, so I don't know where the original article information came from, and have no idea what is and isn't correct.

I added a little information about Eleanor Roosevelt column, the Betsy McCall paper dolls, and the "It's All In The Family" cartoon.

More work is needed on the article, perhaps I'll do some more research and try to improve it at a later date. I love old women's magazines, and have a small collection of them. What genius decided to take out the short stories from women's magazines? Whenever I get hold of an old issue, the first thing I read are the stories. --Karenthewriter (talk) 17:44, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I just added an external link about Betsy McCall dolls, and I added the External Link heading.

I also clicked on the link to "St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture", and saw that the original Wikipedia article seemed to have been lifted word for word from that Encyclopedia article. I'll try to hunt up some other sources of information about the early years (sources with references) and try to divide the long "History" section into at least two sections.

Perhaps a section on McCall patterns would be appropriate. -- --Karenthewriter (talk) 20:21, 18 September 2009 (UTC) 20:13, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I recently purchased a 1909 issue of McCall's Magazine - The Queen of Fashion, and today I added an analysis of what the issue consisted of. If anyone thinks that section doesn't fit in with the rest of the article they can delete it, but I thought it helps people know what the magazine used to be like. --Karenthewriter (talk) 20:21, 18 September 2009 (UTC) (This analysis was deleted by another editor. However I went through 4 magazines from 1909 through 1916 and added a line on how 20% of the magazine was still filled with information on McCall's Patterns. I feel this is relevant, since this was a magazine originally started by a sewing pattern maker.)Karenthewriter (talk) 14:53, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I learned a hard lesson - don't spend months trying to "fix" a plagiarized article. Most of this McCall's article was deleted to eliminate the plagiarism, and my new material was included in the deletion. I almost abandoned the gutted article, then spent over 10 hours researching and writing a new main section. Unless a sentence is in quotes, it is in my own words. --Karenthewriter (talk) 16:46, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Better Sources

It appears that the original Wikipedia article on McCall's was lifted word for word from the "St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture", which doesn't show references. I don't know what their policy is on someone plagiarizing their work, but I feel the article needs to be changed so it's a different document.

Women's Periodicals in the United States - Consumer Magazines (Greenwood Publishing, 1995) has a chapter on McCall's, and has excellent references in the Bibliography. Along with the book chapter, I acquired Pauline Kael's New York Times obituary, and two TIme Magazine articles from 1947 & 1950. Over time I'll edit the new material into the article and provide references.

I believe I'll break the big chunk of the article down by having a section on The Queen period of the magazine, then divide the main part either by decades or major changes in format. --Karenthewriter (talk) 19:29, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

By going to the Rosie O'Donnell article I found external links to a couple of People magazine articles about the magazine Rosie. I've added those External Links, and added a couple of quotes so this won't just be the "St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture" article. --Karenthewriter (talk) 17:50, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

So that a major portion of the article isn't just a word for word copy of another article I changed some sentences around, plus added a couple of lines of information from two articles, which I was able to reference. I also added two more internal links. Karenthewriter (talk) 14:57, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I saw this after I deleted the copyright violation. (I was actually looking for sources for a related article, when I clicked on the link you added, and realized it sounded awfully familiar.) Wikipedia cannot use copyrighted material, even if it is properly attributed (which in this case didn't occur). Simply juggling around a few sentences does not fix the plagiarism issue, nor do the additions of the internal links. I noted that one of the items you added had to do with the repeated firing and rehiring of one of the early editors, which is interesting, but its use relied on the plagiarized material I deleted. If you can rewrite the history section without plagiarizing, feel free to restore the original material you added. Horologium (talk) 19:23, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Another source with a wealth of information about McCall's is Women's periodicals in the United States:consumer magazines, which has some fairly extensive preview sections in Google books; the section on McCall's magazine, which runs from page 218 through page 225, is available in its entirety. That might be a good source to work with as well. Horologium (talk) 19:33, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

The newly written section added today has information from 8 referenced books and articles. (Nothing from the St. James article that had been plagiarized.) If a sentence isn't in quotes, it is in my own words. --Karenthewriter (talk) 16:48, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Background

Hi, couple of comments: I don't think Norman Cousins was ever editor at McCall's; he was editor of the Saturday Evening Post, also owned during the Norton Simon era by McCall's. Also the "private buyer" was the Pritzker Family of Chicago.

Also perhaps notable, Barbara Bush was the daughter of McCall's president Marvin Pierce.David Eyes aka retroscribe 17:51, 27 April 2010

I went to Norman Cousin's on-line obituary and saw no reference to him ever editing McCall's, so I went ahead and removed his name from the article. Karenthewriter (talk) 22:52, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Mad Magazine

Did several gags about McCalls in the late 50’s all having to do with the magazine’s supposed devotion to ‘togetherness’. One was a parody of the magazines cover, with all the articles about the same couple doing things together, another had advice for divorced persons ( I think it was) on how to separate their lives, including ‘separate copies of McCalls’.

Was this a perception of the magazine at the time? Or was there some well known series on togetherness running at the time. Whatever it was, it was well known enough to make fun of, and is part of the social history of the magazine. Some research on this point could improve the article. 2A00:23C5:E0A0:8300:550A:6847:9CE7:AE98 (talk) 22:12, 3 October 2019 (UTC)