The Press: Reid IVs First Flight

Grocer J. Frank Grimes wanted a homey magazine that his customers could tuck into their shopping bags. Editor John W. Mullen wanted a mass audience for his Family Life movement, which fights delinquency and divorce. Young (31) Marshall Field IV wanted to try his wings as a publishing angel. Last week the three of them got together as sponsors of American Family, a 5¢ monthly to be launched in the fall with a starting circulation of 300,000.

It was a cautious trial flight for Field, whose father has spent untold millions keeping the Chicago Sun, PM and other ventures aloft. For only $70,000 (his own), Field IV got all the preferred stock in American Family. The common stock will be split four ways among: 1) Grimes's massive (4,900 stores) Independent Grocers' Alliance, 2) Mullen, 3) Field IV, 4) Carl J. Weitzel, vice president and treasurer of Field Enterprises, Inc. An advisory board of 47 educators and clergymen will try to help the magazine aim a little higher than its biggest rivals, the A & P's giant Woman's Day (circ. 3,000,000) and 15-year-old Family Circle (1,200,000), which is sold in Safeway and other chain stores. American Family, a new version of an idea Mullen tried during the war, will sugar-coat its articles on family problems with cartoons, recipes, fiction and gossip about celebrities.

Backer Field, a Harvardman, Navy veteran and father of two, was divorced last month. "He is interested," said Editor Mullen, "in doing something constructive about family life." Speaking for himself, Field said: "I'm interested in American Family primarily as an experiment. It's an attempt to get away from newsstand sales. Ultimately I hope to get Pocket Books [another Field enterprise] into grocery stores." Meanwhile he was keeping his job as an editorial writer on the Chicago Sun.