the major women magazine illustrators of their time. Together, they created hundreds of covers for McCall's and Good Housekeeping magazines. Joseph Bernt, author of the article "The Girl on the Magazine Cover: The Origins of Visual Stereotypes in American Mass Media" found that both women and Norman Rockwell generally portrayed women in covers and illustrations as mothers, with scenes centered around children, during the 1920s and 1930s. Within the covers of the magazine were illustrations made by the three artists to sell consumer products, like Orange Crush, Ivory soap, Chesterfield cigarettes, and Holeproof Hosiery. Following World War I, increased emphasis of family life was presented in mass media following a period when woman's suffrage and the New Woman were depicted in publications from the late 1800s according to Bernt. Carolyn Kitch, author of the book The Girl on the Magazine Cover, finds, however, that McMein created illustrations of confident, modern New Women for her magazine covers, while Jessie Wilcox Smith concentrated more steadily on children. From 1923 through 1937, McMein created all of McCall's covers. She also supplied work to National Geographic, Woman's Home Companion, Collier's, and Photoplay. McMein earned up to $2,500 (estimated ) per cover illustration. She created advertising graphics for Cadillac, Lucky Strike cigarettes and Palmolive soap. Together with artists Howard Chandler Christy and Harrison Fisher, McMein constituted the jury for Motion Picture Classic magazine's "Fame and Fortune" contest of 1921/1922, which discovered the It girl Clara Bow. Other promotional activities including judging Coney Island beauty contests or opening movie houses. McMein designed silk textiles in the mid-1920s, three examples of which are in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In December 1929, she consulted with Studebaker's design department, with five other women artists and decorators. General Mills commissioned her to create the image of Betty Crocker, a fictional housewife in 1936. She created an official portrait of Betty Crocker by combining features of the home economists employed by the company, which helped reinforce that Crocker was a real person. The image of the "ageless" 32-year-old was used in advertising and on packaging until 1955 when Hilda Taylor painted an updated Betty, who also wore bright red and white clothing. Like the Betty Crocker image, "Miss McMein was herself a kind of American demigoddess: the most courted of commercial artists, hostess in her New York studio to all of the 'Algonquin wits'—Benchley, Parker, Franklin P.