Subscribing to the Sunday Newspaper

There was no singular type of Sunday paper. A multiplicity of Sunday supplements produced new kinds of readers through their very form and design. Each asked readers to do more than read, but to interact with the materiality of the paper as a form of leisure. Sunday supplements established a different temporality from the weekday newspaper and the bustle of the workweek. They entreated readers to spend time with the paper, tying them to the rhythms of the weekend and the home. This temporality linked one Sunday to another, making a subscription all the more logical by providing a cultural aesthetic for the home. Most varieties of supplements appealed to women readers, who were considered especially important for securing home delivery. Lithographed art and photographic supplements, sheet music, novels and fiction magazines, fashion plates, and sewing patterns: all offered a distinctly feminine appeal. Games, puzzles, coloring books and all variety of paper toys appealed to children. Women readers found aesthetic appreciation; juvenile readers delighted in aesthetic play. Even in later days of early radio, Sunday papers were conduits of popular education explicitly including all members of the family as reading subjects, each invested in subscribing to the paper.