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Yours in Sisterhood: Ms. Magazine and the Promise of Popular Feminism by Amy Erdman Farrell
Ms. magazine smashed onto American newsstands in 1972, creating a publishing sensation. Its editors dated the first issue "Spring 1972" because they feared it would take a long time to sell. Instead, the first issue sold out in eight days. The early Ms. claimed 500,000 subscribers and a pass-along readership of 3 million. By 1979, though, the magazine was in financial trouble, reorganizing under the umbrella of the Ms. Foundation, a non-profit originally founded to benefit from profits from the magazine.
Yours in Sisterhood documents the exhilarating rise and agonizingly slow decline of Ms. as a magazine circulated to a wide audience. The magazine still exists today, but with a small, specialized circulation.
Farrell has written a well-researched and carefully considered history of Ms. from its inception through the early 1990s. She interviewed many of the editorial staff, who also gave her access...