100 years ago....
Reader's Digest is born under a bar
Feb 5, 1922
DeWitt Wallace, the son of a US Presbyterian minister, today put out the first issue of an interesting pocket-sized magazine. Called The Reader's Digest, it aims to inform, entertain, inspire and guide people in their daily lives.
With Lila Acheson, his wife, 32-year-old Wallace founded the company last year with just $5,000 in capital - setting up shop below an illegal bar, or "speakeasy", in New York's Greenwich Village.
The first issue, which is being sent to 1,500 subscribers, opens with an article titled "How to Keep Young Mentally". The article's length: one-and-a-half pages.
Article from "Chronicle of the 20th Century" ISBN 1 872031 80 3