Considering gender as an organizing force in the world of magazines is productive both because it allows historians to organize nineteenth and twentieth century magazines according to focus and because examining the relationship between gender targeting and actual audience response can reveal the validity of magazine makers' gender-role assumptions and expectations. The two major themes that emerge from this consideration involve the relationship between advertising and gender segmentation in magazine production and the relationship between gender-segmented magazine production and audience response. From the beginning of mass circulation magazine production, the desire to reach large numbers of women across the nation led advertisers to support the creation of separate magazines for women. Magazine producers used the cultural concept of separate spheres as the rationale for creating gender-targeted magazines. Men's magazines have been more numerous, more specifically focused, and less stable than women's magazines because men were not recognized as major consumers until the 1940s, when magazines began to rely more heavily on advertising. But men's magazines have remained more content specific than women's magazines. The twentieth century magazine industry still features gender marketing along traditional lines and enough audience support exists to warrant continued segmentation. Sex role broadening may affect the magazine industry in the future. (SRT)