Margriet, weekly magazine for women and girls

Anyone who leafs through the many issues of the weekly magazine Margriet (and you can do that in Delpher) realizes how much the position of women has changed in the past three quarters of a century.

In the beginning: focus on children

The cover of the first issue does not show a woman, but a child. That does indicate where the focus lies in the early years: on the woman as the caregiver of her family. She knits clothes for the children, cleans a man's hat and receives advice from a 'pedagogue' about raising children. 'The child's soul is something so tender and fragile that it is almost criminal to hurt it with unnecessary heavy-handed methods' was stated in the third issue of Margriet (14 October 1938). But there is also attention for the woman herself.

The latest hats from Paris are featured, as well as the first beauty tips: 'There are people who think it is necessary to wash their hair every week. This is absolutely not necessary... Once a month is more than enough' (28 October 1938). While drinking coffee, the reader can daydream about a romantic serial.

Margriet weet raad

In the very first issue, Margriet invites female readers to submit questions and problems to the editors, because ‘Margrietje knows a whole lot.’ This makes Margriet an interactive magazine avant-la-lettre; it generates piles of mail. Many requests for a specific knitting pattern or a solution for a difficult cleaning job, but from the start also many letters about children and relationships. The tone of the advice is more didactic than we are used to today: 'Well, dove, if you don't think you can keep up with the advice I give you, I might as well not give it to you, can't I? I think you're a bit lazy!' (18 May 1946). The letter column was so successful that the competing women's magazine Libelle adopted the idea in 1940.

During the Second World War, the occupying forces also imposed a publication ban on Margriet. The first post-war copies of Margriet landed on the doormat on 3 November 1945. Eight black-and-white A4 sheets, that was all the paper there was. Anyone who wanted to subscribe was put on a waiting list. The knitting and sewing patterns have been adapted to the post-war scarcity. Readers receive advice on how to knit a modern ‘American’ sweater from discarded wool, make an apron from a dress that was too small, or a child’s dress from four red men’s handkerchiefs. With the recipes, Margriet must limit itself to the articles that are or will become available in distribution. The weekly magazine happily announced: ‘There is cocoa again!’ and immediately included a recipe.

Shortly after the war, the first edition of the well-known Margriet cookbook was published, which already had its 19th edition in 1970 and was subsequently reprinted many times under other titles. In the 1950s and 1960s, Margriet also launched other side series, such as the popular Winter books and the Margriet pocket series with popular reading material.

The seventies: openness and emancipation

In the seventies, controversial subjects gradually came up, such as sexuality and secularization. The editor-in-chief at the time, Hanny van der Horst, was proud that Margriet was a pioneer in this: “We were at the cradle of openness.” The word emancipation is mentioned and Margriet conducts a survey on working women. What remains are the sections on fashion (women increasingly buy clothes instead of making them themselves), make-up, cooking, gardening and problems with relationships and children. Yet the angle changes: women no longer sacrifice themselves, but are allowed to develop and have fun. The tone also becomes less didactic. 'You have a magazine like that for the fun', Van der Horst said about it, 'and that is not an ugly word.'