The Press: Curtis Takes Shelter

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With no descendants, Publisher William H. Eaton, 76, has long looked for the right company to buy his successful monthly, The American Home (circ. 3,259,925). Last week Eaton acknowledged that he had found his buyer: the Curtis Publishing Co. (Satevepost, Ladies' Home Journal, Holiday), which has distributed American Home for four years. For an undisclosed sum, Curtis bought Eaton's majority holdings plus the remaining stock owned by President-Editor Jean Austin, 57.

The deal gives Curtis a solid lodgment in the prospering field of shelter magazines. Catering to the middle-brow homebody and thriving on the postwar trend to do-it-yourself, American Home has picked up 800,000 new readers over the past ten years. The Meredith Publishing Co.'s Better Homes and Gardens has done even better, adding 1,200,000 readers in ten years to reach a circulation of 4,379,237. In advertising revenue Better Homes now ranks sixth among all national magazines, American Home a solid 16th.

Curtis plans no immediate changes in the magazine, will leave Canadian-born Publisher Eaton and President-Editor Austin in their present jobs. Says Eaton: "We're very happy about the whole thing. In effect, we will be a subsidiary of Curtis."