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