Helen Valentine

Helen Valentine (1893-1986) was the founder and editor in chief of Seventeen and Charm magazines.

Born Helen Rose Lachman in Manhattan, she was the only child of German Jewish immigrants. Her father Gustave was an accountant and her mother Bertha (née Kahn) was a homemaker. Although she attended temple with her mother and went to Jewish Sunday school, her family also celebrated Christmas. She graduated from the Ethical Culture School and Barnard College.

After school, she worked in the magazine industry. In 1944, while serving as promotion director for Mademoiselle magazine at Walter Annenberg's Triangle Publications, she was asked by Annenberg to help revive a movie magazine. Although the concept of "teenager" as a distinct demographic segment of the population was a relatively new idea at that time, Valentine instead proposed a magazine for teen-age girls. Noticing the wide popularity of a King Features Syndicate comic strip by cartoonist Hilda Terry that focused on the trials and tribulations of a typical teenager's life entitled Teena which began running in July 1944, Valentine convinced Annenberg that teenage girls needed a magazine of their own and that the then unserved demographic had the potential to become an important and lucrative new consumer market segment stating that "It was time to treat children as adults."

The magazine was launched in September 1944 and within a year, Seventeen had a circulation of a million. Seventeen is credited with creating a teen market for clothing manufacturers and other industries. In 1950, she accepted a job with Street & Smith to revamp a fading fashion magazine called Charm which she re-configured into the country's first magazine for working women. Charm was eventually merged into Glamour magazine after being bought by Conde Nast Publications. In 1958, Valentine was hired by Good Housekeeping magazine to write a column, Young Wife's World, where she remained until she retired in 1963.

Valentine was married to banker Herbert Valentine (died 1978). She had two children: Barbara Valentine Hertz and Barry Valentine. Her granddaughter, Valentine Hertz Kass was one of the first women Producer/Directors at KQED in San Francisco, the first Director of the Navy Pier IMAX Theater, and the Founding Director of the American Children’s Television Festival. Her great-grandson, Sam Kass, served as Barack Obama's Senior Policy Advisor For Nutrition Policy. Valentine died in 1986 in Miami at her daughter's home.