Shufu no Tomo

Shufu no Tomo (主婦の友) (meaning Housewife's Friend in English) was a Japanese monthly women's magazine based in Tokyo, Japan. The magazine was in circulation between 1917 and 2008.

Shufu no Tomo

Categories	Women's magazine
Frequency	Monthly
Publisher	Shufu no Tomo Co. Ltd.
Founder	Ishikawa Takemi
Year founded	1917
First issue	March 1917
Final issue	2008
Country	Japan
Based in	Tokyo
Language	Japanese

History and profile

Shufu no Tomo was launched in 1917[1][2][3] and the first issue appeared in March 1917.[4] The founding company was Tokyo Kaseikai.[5] Its founder was Ishikawa Takemi.[6] The magazine was published monthly by Shufu no Tomo Co. Ltd. in Tokyo.[7][8]

Shufu no Tomo had a conservative stance.[9] It addressed young married women during the initial phase.[6] At the same time its target audience was the mass market and lower-middle class women.[3] It covered articles about home management, including savings and birth control.[2] In 2008 Shufu no Tomo ceased publication.[10]

Circulation

Shufu no Tomo had an estimated circulation of 200,000 copies in 1927.[11] In 1931 the monthly circulation was 600,000 copies[6] and reached a total circulation about 8 million copies.[12] In 1952 it was the third best-selling and the third popular magazine in the country.[7][13] Shufu no Tomo was one of four powerful and best-selling women's magazines in Japan in 1958.[14] The other three were Fujin kurabu, Fujin seikatsu and Shufu to seikatsu.[14] Their combined circulation was 2,200,000 copies that year.[14]

References

1. Dolores Martinez (13 October 1998). The Worlds of Japanese Popular Culture: Gender, Shifting Boundaries and Global Cultures. Cambridge University Press. p. 110. ISBN 978-0-521-63729-9. Retrieved 19 February 2017.
2. Takeda Hiroko (23 September 2004). The Political Economy of Reproduction in Japan. Routledge. p. 55. ISBN 978-1-134-35543-3. Retrieved 17 September 2016.
3. Glenn D. Hook (2005). Contested Governance in Japan: Sites and Issues. Psychology Press. p. 237. ISBN 978-0-415-36498-0. Retrieved 17 September 2016.
4. "Über den Autor und weitere Mitwirkende". Amazon. Retrieved 17 September 2016.
5. Ai Maeda (25 March 2004). Text and the City: Essays on Japanese Modernity. Duke University Press. p. 167. ISBN 0-8223-8562-7.
6. Barbara Sato (26 March 2003). The New Japanese Woman: Modernity, Media, and Women in Interwar Japan. Duke University Press. p. 94. ISBN 0-8223-8476-0. Retrieved 17 September 2016.
7. Edward R. Beauchamp (1998). Women and Women's Issues in Post World War II Japan. Taylor & Francis. p. 206. ISBN 978-0-8153-2731-8. Retrieved 17 September 2016.
8. "Company Overview of Shufu no Tomo Co. Ltd". Bloomberg. Retrieved 17 September 2016.
9. Sharon Kinsella (7 November 2013). Schoolgirls, Money and Rebellion in Japan. Routledge. p. 86. ISBN 978-1-134-48841-4. Retrieved 17 September 2016.
10. Philip Brasor (24 August 2008). "It's time for perfectly cute 50-year-old Japanese women". The Japan Times. Retrieved 17 September 2016.
11. Minggang Li (2008). "The Early Years of Bungei Shunju and the Emergence of a Middlebrow Literature" (PhD Thesis). Ohio State University. p. 262. Retrieved 17 September 2016.
12. Stephen S. Large (1998). Shōwa Japan: 1926-1941. Taylor & Francis. p. 261. ISBN 978-0-415-14320-2. Retrieved 17 September 2016.
13. Emiko Ochiai (1997). "Decent Housewives and Sensual White Women". Japan Review (9). JSTOR 25791006.
14. Jan Bardsley (19 June 2014). Women and Democracy in Cold War Japan. A&C Black. p. 111. ISBN 978-1-4725-2566-6.