From modest beginnings, Modern Maturity, the magazine of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), grew into the largest average circulation magazine in the nation—without being available on newsstands. The Time -sized publication, a glossy bimonthly, has been sent through the mail to some 23 million households that included over 33 million AARP members who received it as part of their annual dues.

The rise of Modern Maturity coincided with the growth of AARP, which could trace its roots to a meeting in a Washington, D.C. hotel of its three founding directors, Dr. Ethel Percy Andrus, who came up with the idea for the organization, and two of her associates, Grace Hatfield and Ernest Giddings. According to minutes of that meeting, it was decided to incorporate a nonprofit, nonpartisan membership organization in Washington, D.C., on July l, 1958. At the time, Andrus was a 72-year-old California...