In its early years, the monthly contained a selection of articles originally published in Arthur's weekly Home Gazette.[2][3] Its non-fiction stories contained occasional factual inaccuracies for the sake of a good read.[4] A contemporary review judged it "gotten up in good taste and well; and is in nothing overdone. Even its fashion plates are not quite such extravagant caricatures of rag-baby work as are usually met with in some of the more fancy magazines."[5] Readers included patrons of the Mercantile Library Association of San Francisco.[6]
Author Rosella Rice, best known for her writings about Johnny Appleseed, contributed countless stories, humorous essays, tutorials, and poems to the magazine. Writing from the perspective of various comedic characters, she adopted pseudonyms including Pipsissiway Potts (responsible homemaker),[7] Aunt Chatty Brooks (eccentric hotelier),[8][9][10][11] and Mrs. Sam Starkey (elderly busybody).[12] The characters, likely created for Arthur's, "inhabited her magazine's stories, and became 'real' to hundreds of readers".[13]
^Alice Fahs (1999). "The Feminized Civil War: Gender, Northern Popular Literature, and the Memory of the War, 1861-1900". Journal of American History. 85.
^Bertha Monica Stearns (1945). "Philadelphia Magazines for Ladies: 1830-1860". Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. 69.
^ abcAdvertisement for "Arthur's Home Magazine for 1861. The Ladies' Home Magazine. Volumes XVII and XVIII. Edited by T.S. Arthur and Virginia F. Townsend. Devoted to social literature, art, morals, health, and domestic happiness." (In: Godey's Lady's Book. January 1861. {{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help))
