
Mid-century magazine illustrations helped to define the era. This illustration by Lynn Buckham showing a couple at the beach extended 2 pages of the July 1959 edition of Good Housekeeping magazine. It accompanied a short story titled, “The Helpless Helpmeet” by Mary Thayer Muller.

It was typical for mid-century women’s magazines to include a number of illustrated short stories in each issue. This issue had 3.

The other 2 short stories from this issue were also illustrated in the classic mid-century style.


After 1959, I noticed a change to this classic style of illustration as the new decade began. The classic Norman Rockwell style of illustration changed completely in the 1960’s as shown below.
Here are 3 illustrations from Good Housekeeping 4 years later from the May 1963 issue.




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