NEW YORK—The original marketer of Seventeen Magazine, Estelle Ellis Rubinstein, died at age 92 at her home in Manhattan. Rubinstein died of lung cancer July 1, according Women’s Wear Daily.
Rubinstein wrote the first market research studies on identifying young girls as a distinct economic market, and helped launch Seventeen Magazine in 1944. The magazine set the precedence for teen magazines.
With Seventeen’s editor Helen Valentine, and art director Cipe Pineles, Rubinstein then launched Charm magazine in 1950. Charm was the first magazine to target women as a separate market.
In 1958, Rubinstein and her husband, Sam Rubinstein, started a creative marketing firm called Business Image. The firm was dedicated to “helping business understand the impact of social change on business trends,” her daughter Nora Childress wrote in her blog.
The firm worked with publishing industry clients such as Glamour, Vogue, and Elle. Rubinstein also advised numerous universities and institutions on marketing.
The Estelle Ellis Collection (1944–1994) is at the Archives Center of the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. The collection has promotional brochures that Rubinstein collected as reference material over the years. Rubinstein donated the material to the museum in 2005.
Rubinstein was the first in her family to attend college. She graduated from Hunter College in Manhattan in 1940, with a major in political science and a minor in journalism, according to her daughter.
By her teen years, Rubinstein had already begun writing radio scripts about artists and writers at the Works Project Administration. She grew up in Brooklyn and was the youngest daughter of Russian immigrants.
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