An immigrant from the Netherlands, journalist and social reformer Edward Bok emphasized the virtues of hard work and assimilation in his 1920 autobiography, The Americanization of Edward Bok, which won the Pulitzer Prize for biography and was reprinted in 60 editions over the next two decades. As one of America's most prominent magazine editors around the turn of the twentieth century, Bok originated the concept of the modern mass-circulation women's magazine during his 30-year tenure (1889-1919) as editor of the Ladies' Home Journal. His editorship coincided with a period of profound change, as the United States shifted from an agrarian to an urban society, and his was a prominent voice in defining and explaining these changes to a newly emergent middle class often unsure of its role in the new order of things. "He outdid his readers in his faith in the myths and hopes of...