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The following are a few advertisements that appeared in the September 12, 1917 edition of the matrimonial magazine The New Plan.

Ad #214  Hello, all you widowers and bachelors, right this way if you are looking for a companion; here she is, age 60, weight 100, height 4 feet 11 inches; black eyes, dark hair, American; Golden Rule religion, jolly and good natured; have means of $3,000; wish a husband with some means, city or country, age from 50 to 75; will answer all letters.

Ad #215  Boys, I am a lonesome little girl, alone in the world and earning my own living and am tired of doing so; my age is 20 years, weight 145, height 5 feet 3 inches, blue eyes, dark hair, good housekeeper, am considered good looking, have some means, also piano; common school education; prefer country life; will marry if suited.

Ad #216  Dear old men, here is your chance to get a true loving companion.  I am a widow by death, age 69 years, but don’t look or feel or act over 40; always in good humor, very loving and kind; a good housekeeper, weight 104, height 5 feet 2 inches, blue eyes, brown hair, nationality German; would like to meet some congenial gentlemen near my own age, with means enough to make a good home.

Ad #217  A perfect blonde; trained nurse, wishes to make the acquaintance of a nice young gentlemen, view to matrimony; age 23, weight 124, height 5 feet 3 inches; German-American, college education, very neat dresser; will answer all letters.

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During the late 1880s, Gold Country hostelries were literally filled with blushing brides.  Women arrived from eastern locations to wed the men they’d met through mail-order advertisements and set up house in the rich hills of northern California.  San Francisco was one of the most popular places in the country to honeymoon.  Couples found it to be a cheerful city with enough sights to occupy their time for months.  The presence of many new partners gave the location a sense of solace that helped make the mail-order pairs feel at home as well.  San Francisco innkeepers competed for the business of honeymooning couples, offering them a variety of goods and services in return for staying at their establishments.  The rivalry between the hotels was fierce and often made front-page news.

So great has become the competition between three or four of the leading city’s hotels in the solicitation for bridal couples that the most successful of the landlords in this effort presents each one of the brides who stop at his hostelry a beautiful bouquet or basket of cut flowers.  The clerk who receives the couple inquires of the bridegroom if he suspects a recent marriage – an it is seldom that a mistake is made – and then the flowers go up to the apartments engaged.

One of the most lucrative classes for the landlords is the newly married.  Beginning in October and ending in April, it is estimated that there are in the city an average all the time of two hundred pairs of brides and grooms.  The manager of the hotel which entertains most of them says he frequently has forty couples, and averages over twenty-five during the busy season.  They are, he says, the most desirable class of guests.  Always pleasant, they want the best of everything, and are given it.  This hostelry makes a feature of pleasing those people, and all embarrassments are lessened to the minimum.  Guests there are so used to seeing large numbers of brides and grooms that they are spared the stares so customary where this class is rare.

It is said to be the purpose of the great hotel company organizing here, and which intends to build a structure at a cost of $2,500,000, to arrange on floor with bridal apartments.

Matrimonial News – January 1887

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The New Plan was a mail-order catalog/newspaper that was in circulation from 1911 to 1917.  The following are a few samples of advertisements found in the September 1917 edition of the periodical.

Ad #101  Everybody says that I’m fine looking for my age; am honest, intelligent, neat and clean, kind-hearted and have a good character.  Age, 58; weight, 120; height 5 feet 2 inches; blue eyes; brown hair; fine homemaker.  Income, $200 per year.  Have real estate worth $4,000.  Object matrimony.  Will answer all letters.

Ad #102  A winsome miss of 22; very beautiful, jolly and entertaining; fond of home and children; from good family; American; Christian; blue eyes; golden hair; fair complexion; pleasant disposition; play piano.  Will inherit $10,000.  Also have means of $1,000.  None but men of good education need to write from 20 to 38 years of age.

Ad #103  Would like to get married, because I’m lonesome.  Am considered rather good looking and of a lovable disposition.  Age, 35; height, 5 feet 5 inches; weight 145; hazel eyes; brown hair; American; occupation, stenographer and bookkeeper.  Will inherit a few thousand.  Will answer all letters.

Ad #104  Lonely in Pennsylvania.  Society has no charms for me; prefer a quiet life.  Am an American lady, with common school education; well thought of and respected; age 25; height 5 feet 9 inches; weight, 155; blue eyes; light hair.  Have means of $3,000.  Wish correspondence with good natured, honest, industrious man.

Ad #105 A perfect blonde; trained nurse, wishes to make the acquaintance of a nice young gentlemen, view to matrimony; age 23, weight 124, height 5 feet 3 inches; German-American; college education, very neat dresser; will answer all letters.

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Hearts West:  True Stories of Mail-Order Brides on the Frontier

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Tears slid down widow Mabel Haskell’s face and fell onto the blank piece of paper in front of her.  She sat poised, pen in hand over the monogrammed stationary, contemplating her life and lamenting her cheerless state of affairs.  The sad but striking-looking woman in her late forties had no family, no children of her own, and had lost her husband of twenty-three years ten months earlier.  She was lonely and fearful that she would always remain so.

Desperate for companionship, Mabel decided to advertise for a partner.  She knew other women whose solicitation for a spouse had been answered and a handful of those were fortunate enough to marry the men who replied.  Mabel wondered if she would be as lucky.  Blinking away tears, she decided the time was right to submit an ad to the popular publication The New Plan.  Perhaps an equally lonely gentleman would read the personal plea and seek her out.  Perhaps she would find love again.

Helping eligible men and women find one another, correspond, and marry was the main goal of The New Plan.  Published in Kansas City, Missouri, the magazine’s purpose was to unite lonely hearts, with various momentary and social background, who were unable to find a desirable life partner.

Ladies especially, whose opportunities are somewhat limited as to forming acquaintances, seek the method (proposed in The New Plan) knowing that in no other way have they so much advantage.  Don’t think because you are not wealthy yourself that you cannot get a rich party to marry you.  Love is not measured in lucre.  Morality, fidelity, respectability, ambition and beauty often tip the opposing weight of wealth on the matrimonial scale.  Women in affluent circumstances are not usually seeking an increase of wealth in marriage.  The self-respecting man of means, in seeking a wife is not seeking her for the property she may have.  We get many inquiries from both sexes who have plenty of means for two and who seek life companions of true worth and not for means.  We do business with such people constantly and know whereof we speak.  The New Plan Notice – 1917

The New Plan was circulated from 1911 to 1917.  The following are samples of advertisements found in the September 1917 edition of the periodical.  The first advertisement was submitted by Mabel Haskell.

Ad #1 – I am a lonely unemcumbered widow; age 48; weight 165; height, 5 feet 6 inches; big blue eyes; brown hair; fair complexion; American; religion, Methodist.  I have property worth $30,000.  A sunny disposition; considered very good looking.  Would like to hear from some good business man.  Object, matrimony.

Ad #2 – I do not pose as a beauty, but people tell me that I look well.  Enjoy fun and social gatherings.  Age, 27; weight 138; height, 64 inches; brown eyes; brown hair; fair complexion; American; very good disposition; plain dresser, but neat.  Prefer country life.  Income $20 per month.  Matrimonially inclined.

Ad #3 – A perfect blonde; trained nurse, wishes to make the acquaintance of a nice young gentlemen, view to matrimony; age 23, weight 124, height 5 feet 3 inches; German-American; college education, very neat dresser; will answer all letters.

To learn more about women and men seeking a spouse in the

Old West read

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The Matrimonial News, a San Francisco matchmaking newspaper, was dedicated to “promoting honorable matrimonial engagements and true conjugal facilities” for men and women through personal advertisements and was a forerunner of the matchmaking clubs and personal ads in newspapers today.  Not all of the matrimonial bureaus and agencies were legitimate, however, and many a disappointed bride or groom was left with empty pockets after contracting for a mail-order mate.

Here are a few of the ads posted in the January 8, 1887, edition of Matrimonial News.

283 – A gentlemen of 25 years old, 5 feet 3 inches, doing a good business in the city, desires the acquaintance of a young, intelligent and refined lady possessed of some means, of a loving disposition from 18 to 23, and one who could make a home a paradise.

287 – An intelligent young fellow of 22 years, 6 feet height, weight 170 pounds.  Would like to correspond with a lady from 18 to 22 years.  Will exchange photos:  object, fun and amusement, and perhaps when acquainted, if suitable, matrimony.

245 – I am 48, fat, fair, and plan on losing no weight.  Am a No. 1 lady, well fixed with no encumbrances:  am in business in city but want a partner who lives in the West.  Want an energetic man that has some means, not under 40 years of age and weight not less than 180.  Of good habits.  A Christian gentleman preferred.

241 – I am a widow, aged 28, have one child, height 64 inches, blue eyes, weight 125 pounds, loving disposition.  I am poor; would like to hear from honorable men from 30 to 40 years old:  working men preferred.

To read more Old West advertisements read

Hearts West:  True Stories of Mail Order Brides on the Frontier.

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In the early days of westward travel, when men and women left behind their homes and acquaintances in search of wealth and happiness, there was a recognized need for some method of honorable introduction between the sexes.  This need was readily fulfilled by the formation of a periodical devoted entirely to the advancement of marriage.  Throughout the 1870s, 80s and 90s, that periodical, to which many unattached men and women subscribed, was a newspaper called Matrimonial News.  The paper was printed in San Francisco, California, and Kansas City, Missouri.  It was issued once a week and the paper’s editors proclaimed that the intent of the material was the happiness of its readers.

According to the Matrimonial News business manager, Stark Taylor, the paper would “bring letters from a special someone to desiring subscribers in hopes that a match would be made and the pair would spend the rest of their life together.”

Fair and gentle reader, can we be useful to you?  Are you a stranger desiring a helpmate or searching for agreeable company that may in the end ripen into closer ties?  If so, send us a few lines making known your desires.  Are you bashful and dread publicity?  Be not afraid.  You need not disclose to use your identity.  Send along your correspondence accompanied by five centers for every seven words, and we will publish it under an alias and bring about correspondence in the most delicate fashion.  To cultivate the noble aim of life and help men and women into a state of bliss is our aim.

A code of rules and regulations, posted in each edition of the paper, was strictly enforced.  All advertisers were required to provide information on their personal appearance, height, weight, and their financial and social positions, along with a general description of the kind of persons with whom they desired correspondence.  Gentlemen’s personals of forty words or under were published once for twenty-five cents in stamps or postage.  Ladies’ personals of forty words or under were published free of charge.  Any advertisements over forty words, whether for ladies or gentlemen, were charged a rate of one cent for each word.

The personal ads were numbered, to avoid publishing names and addresses.  Replies to personals were to be sent to the Matrimonial News office sealed in an envelope with the number of the ad on the outside.

Every edition of the Matrimonial News began with the same positive affirmation: “Women need a man’s strong arm to support her in life’s struggle, and men need a woman’s love.”

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