The Australian Women's Weekly Magazine (February 14, 1942)
 
The Australian Women's Weekly, sometimes known as simply The Weekly, is an Australian monthly women's magazine published by Bauer Media Group in Sydney
 
In the years before the war, the Weekly tended to divert attention from the inevitable, and softened war-related news items. From mid-1939 it was even publishing a separate monthly fashion supplement. Once fighting had commenced in earnest, it did offer regular reports on the events of war; it consistently provided patterns for readers to sew socks for soldiers; and it published rousing poetry by Dame Mary Gilmore, including the immensely popular No Foe Shall Gather Our Harvest (1940) and Singapore (1942). It was careful, though, to retain its positive tone. The Weekly was 'unashamedly propagandist... Daily newspapers could depict the carnage; the Weekly was there with a cheering cup of tea for the survivors'. Good news was emphasised; themes of service and patriotism constantly reiterated. Reports were published from London under the name of Mary St Claire, who was, in fact, several persons, but primarily the journalist Anne Matheson. From October 1940 to September 1945, Adele Shelton Smith's regular section, Letters From Our Boys, gained enormous popularity. Shelton Smith became the first accredited female correspondent from Australia to be sent to Malaya, and filed reports for the Weekly designed to reassure wives and mothers that their boys were in fine shape with high morale. In the event, some criticised her writing (and Bill Brindle's photographs - particularly one of a smiling taxi dancer wearing a Digger's hat) for making it look as if the boys were having far too good a time. Shelton Smith was deeply upset by this interpretation of her journalism, but the matter found some resolution later. Alice Jackson, too, was given accredited war correspondent status and sent regular reports from abroad.
 
During wartime, resources developed for the Weekly despite printing restrictions, and it began publishing coloured photographic covers. By mid-1946 it was selling 700,000 copies per week. In fact, the Weekly 'became something of a textbook on post-war domestic rehabilitation', offering advice on house plans and home furnishings. It also began to focus heavily on fashion, employing Mary Hordern (younger sister of Gretel Packer, Frank's wife) as a fashion contributor, and holding four annual Paris fashion parades between 1946-1949. From 1947, Dorothy Drain began penning her own column, 'It Seems To Me'. It remained a popular feature of the magazine for sixteen years.
 
One magazine for sale in Fair to Good Condition