Edward Bok

Edward Bok (1863-1930) was the influential editor of Ladies’ Home Journal (1889-1919) and a strong supporter of Theodore Roosevelt.

Eduard Willem Gerard Cesar Hidde Bok was born into an affluent family in 1863 in Den Helder, Netherlands, the son of Sieke van Herwerden and Willem Jan Hidde Bok. A series of economic hardships reversed the family’s fortunes. When Bok was seven years old, he and his family immigrated to the United States. At age ten, he took a job in a bakery, and in his teens had to drop out of school to work fulltime. He would later attribute his business success to the lessons he learned from being poor and working hard. These he summarized in a 1915 essay entitled “Why I Believe in Poverty.”

After a series of jobs, by the 1880s, Bok had found his niche in the publishing business where he was employed by Henry Holt, Scribner’s, and, from 1882 through 1884, as the editor of Brooklyn Magazine. In 1889, Bok moved to Philadelphia to assume the editorship of Ladies’ Home Journal. He turned the magazine into a nationwide platform for his causes, which included environmental conservationism; enlightened health care for infants, children, and women; sex education; and affordable, modern houses stripped of Victorian bric-a-brac. He is credited with coining the term “living room” and encouraging families to utilize the space, rather than having a parlor or drawing room set aside for company. According to Bok’s memoir, Roosevelt proclaimed him “the only man I ever heard of who changed, for the better, the architecture of an entire nation, and he did it so quickly and yet so effectively that we didn’t know it was begun before it was finished. That is a mighty big job for one man to have done.”

Bok’s third-person, Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir, The Americanization of Edward Bok, contains many references to Theodore Roosevelt, whom Bok idolized. In the chapter entitled “Theodore Roosevelt’s Influence,” Bok wrote that even before he met Roosevelt at a dinner, he “felt that there was something distinctive about” him. He admitted that he had “observed everything Colonel Roosevelt did and read everything he wrote.” The two were drawn together by their shared Dutch heritage and their overlapping interests in strengthening the middle-class family.

As editor of Ladies’ Home Journal, Bok gave Roosevelt three opportunities to influence his nearly two million readers. In his autobiography, Bok explained in the chapter “Theodore Roosevelt’s Anonymous Editorial Work,” how journalist Robert L. O’Brien interviewed Roosevelt on matters of his choice and then turned these “shaving interviews” (so-called because Roosevelt gave the interviews while he was being shaved) into a column called “The President.” The articles covered an array of topics such as protective legislation, “race suicide,” child labor, the strenuous life, the right of women to choose a profession, and physical education for children. Roosevelt echoed Bok’s belief in the Progressive Era home revitalization movement which encouraged parents to raise useful citizens and thereby guarantee a strong America.

In 1916, Roosevelt himself wrote “Men,” a monthly, anonymous column for which Bok paid Roosevelt a stipend. To maintain the secrecy, Roosevelt wrote his drafts in longhand, mailed them to Bok, who copied them and gave them to his printer. No secretarial help was used and the column’s author remained open to speculation until Bok named Roosevelt after the latter’s death. “Men” consisted of a year’s advice to the male readers of Ladies’ Home Journal on topics such as fatherhood and the duties of the employer to the employee, with titles such as “Men and Women,” “Discipline,” and “Man and His Neighbor.”

The third way in which Roosevelt influenced readers was through his manuscript reviews. Bok solicited Roosevelt’s opinions on article submissions of note, and thereby Roosevelt played a role in which articles were published and put before readers.

Bok, who had no formal relationship with the Boy Scouts—but who did have enough money to offer a $25,000 annual salary—wanted to make former President Roosevelt the head of the Boy Scouts of America in 1918. Bok’s hope was that Roosevelt could exhort the 400,000 Boy Scouts to embrace the definition of Americanism that he and Roosevelt shared. Roosevelt’s death in January 1919 made this plan impossible.

Before he passed away in 1930, Bok was known as a philanthropist and a humanitarian. He authored several books, chaired the Netherland-America Association, created and funded the American Peace Award, developed a bird sanctuary and park in Lake Wales, Florida (today, the national historic landmark of Bok Tower Gardens), promoted important civic endeavors in Philadelphia, and endowed professorships. He was survived by his two sons and his wife, Mary Curtis Bok, to whom he left his multi-million-dollar estate.