Farm Journal history

In his day, Atkinson also championed women's rights, heading the Pennsylvania Men's League for Women's Suffrage that operated out of the Farm Journal offices in 1915.

In 1935 Farm Journal was sold to the Pew family, owners of Sun Oil Co. (ownership was later transferred to The Pew Charitable Trusts). Subsequently, publisher Graham Patterson sold the magazine's printing press, electing to have R.R. Donnelley & Son do the printing.

In 1939 it purchased The Farmer's Wife, a national women's magazine, which was then included as a magazine within Farm Journal.

Although circulation of Farm Journal continued to rise, reaching a peak of almost 3.7 million in 1953, the dynamics of publishing were changing.

In 1962 it began creating a database on its readers, which it soon took advantage of in a rudimentary way.

After a group of seven employees led by Dale E. Smith bought Farm Journal Inc. from The Pew Charitable Trusts in 1973, the magazine became even more aggressive in gathering information, by the use of phone interviews, to further purge its subscription lists.

Management began talking to Chicago media giant Tribune Company in 1993 about a possible sale.

Farm Journal then trimmed its staff by about 10 percent, and in June 1994 Tribune purchased the company for a reported $20 million.

In January 1998 Farm Journal purchased AgDay, the longest running nationally syndicated agribusiness news television program.

By November 1999, management decided to scrap the plan altogether, after concluding that an offering would fail to sufficiently excite investors.