Death of pioneering free magazine director

by Staff Reporter
JACQUELINE Herrenschmidt, a pioneer of foreign language publications aimed at tourists, has died in Majorca.
Her work at the head of the magazine La Semana Mallorquina, a free weekly publication which provided information on services (taxis, plane and boat-times, official organisms, etc) was significant in this field and was one of the first of its kind. La Semana Mallorquina, which was published in Spanish, French, English and German, first appeared in 1955, before the tourist boom, and remained on the market until the 1970s. Printing methods were laborious in those days, using the linotype and photogravures, a far cry from the computerised methods of today.
The weekly magazine was printed at the Imprenta Atlanta, one of the most active and dynamic printing works of the time.
Margalida Magraner, head of administration of the Majorca Daily Bulletin, knew Jacqueline Herrenschmidt, who was French, well. “She was a calm person and lived in Terreno. She dedicated herself to the magazine. She really loved Majorca and that is why she lived here, at a time when it was very quiet.” She was from Alsace and married sports journalist Georges Peeters, chief reporter of the French paper L'Equipe, and she had a very close relationship with his children. One of his sons, Frank G Peeters, lives on the island. La Semana Mallorquina was distributed in tourist establishments which were growing rapidly. It was distributed in luxury hotels, first class bars and cafes, chalets in Son Armadans, Terreno, Genova, Cala Mayor and San Agustin, the ships of the Union Castle Line, travel agencies in Paris and even hotels in Las Palmas (Canary Islands). Advertising rates ranged from 20 to 400 pesetas (for less than three months) and between 15 and 350 pesetas (for more than three months).
It attracted prestigious names of the time for its advertising. They included the Anglo American Lending Library in Terreno, Casa José Buades, Zapatos Tascon, Casa Bonet, Rolex, Bar Bruselas, Tito's, Hertz, Selemar, Odette, Sasstrería Garau, Haute Couture Frederik. Glancing through its pages now is like travelling back in time, to a time when tourism was just beginning, and going from strength to strength.