Modern Romances

For generations, men have wondered where women manage to come up with some of the crazy ideas they are known to come up with.  To be sure, the world is not always fair to the fairer sex.

Look no further than the local magazine stand and the pages of Modern Romances magazine to  discover the source of many of the ill-fated notions which come into a young girl's head

Modern Romances came from the presses of Dell Publications, never the most highfalutin of publishing houses. Dell's content policy could be interpreted as "print anything that the readers will buy". In 1921, Dell founder George T. Delacourt decided that his publications would appeal to readers who were bored with the offerings of "more genteel" publishers. Like many of Dell's other offerings, such as Analog Science Fiction and Fact, and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Modern Romances was a pulp magazine. Marketed to "good girls", the magazine featured articles on how to get a man, how to keep a man, how to tell if your man is cheating, and what to do with the tramp he was cheating with.

Headlines included things like "Kiss Intoxication", "I Was Bait for Every Wolf", "Loose Girl: Pity the Boys who become her victims", "Wanted: Live-In Lover", "Tempted Into Sin", "The Life and Loves of Hedy Lamarr", and "Too Young to be Faithful". With such a titillating selection of material to work with, it is hardly surprising that several of the stories were adapted for radio syndication by NBC in 1944. The ten-minute spots would have been used wherever an affiliate needed the filler.

As one of Dell's flagship titles, Modern Romance graced newsstands from the Roaring Twenties until the Swinging Sixties.