HIGHLIGHTS FROM 100 YEARS of Reader's Digest

This month, Reader’s Digest celebrates a remarkable milestone: its 100th anniversary.

From its start in February 1922, every issue has been packed with useful information and inspiring stories. Over 10 decades, Reader’s Digest has become a global powerhouse, and today, with 23 editions in 41 countries, it remains one of the world’s most-read, best-loved publications.

Just before DeWitt Wallace launched this ‘little magazine’, he said, “The Digest will have but one mission: to interest and at the same time to widen one’s outlook, to increase one’s appreciation of things and people, to enlarge one’s capacity for enjoyable association with fellow men, to lubricate the process of adjustment to this world.”

We have highlighted some of the many milestones of Reader’s Digest in a historic timeline in this issue, and throughout the rest of this year, we will bring you the best examples of enduring articles from our archives. Here’s to another 100 years!

—From the Editors

1922 DeWitt and Lila Acheson Wallace publish 5,000 copies of the first issue of Reader’s Digest, ‘The little magazine’, in New York. It has 64 pages and 31 articles, all condensed from other publications.

1929 Subscribers number more than 2,00,000, and the magazine also becomes available at newsstands.

1930 Reader contributions are requested for regular departments, many focused on humor.

1933 The first original article, Insanity—the Modern Menace, by Henry Morton Robinson, is published. The next year, RD expands from 64 to 128 pages.