Ms. (magazine)

Ms. is an American feminist magazine co-founded in 1971 by the journalist and sociopolitical activist Gloria Steinem. It was the first national American feminist magazine. The original editors were Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Mary Thom, Patricia Carbine, Joanne Edgar, Nina Finkelstein, Mary Peacock, Margaret Sloan-Hunter, and Gloria Steinem. Beginning as a one-off insert in New York magazine in 1971, the first stand-alone issue of Ms. appeared in July 1972, with funding from New York editor Clay Felker. The original publisher was co-founder Elizabeth Forsling Harris, a Peace Corps activist and Democratic National Committee operative, who sold her stock back to the company in 1972. Harris later sued the magazine for $1.7 million. Ms. was intended to appeal to a wide audience and featured articles about a variety of issues related to women and feminism. From July 1972 until 1987, it was published monthly. At its peak in the 1970s, Ms. enjoyed great success but was not always able to reconcile its ideological concerns with commercial considerations. Since 2001, the magazine has been published by the Feminist Majority Foundation, based in Los Angeles and Arlington, Virginia. It now publishes quarterly.