Bok determined to please his older readers by harking back to the past and at the same time acquainting the younger generation with the picturesque events which had preceded their time.
He also believed that if he could "dress up" the past, he could arrest the attention of a generation which was too likely to boast of its interest only in the present and the future.

He took a course of reading and consulted with Mr.Charles A.Dana, editor of the _New York Sun_, who had become interested in his work and had written him several voluntary letters of commendation.

Mr.Dana gave material help in the selection of subjects and writers; and was intensely amused and interested by the manner in which his youthful confrere "dressed up" the titles of what might otherwise have looked like commonplace articles.
"I know," said Bok to the elder editor, "it smacks a little of the sensational, Mr.Dana, but the purpose I have in mind of showing the young people of to-day that some great things happened before they came on the stage seems to me to make it worth while." Mr.Dana agreed with this view, supplemented every effort of the Philadelphia editor in several subsequent talks, and in 1897 _The Ladies' Home Journal_ began one of the most popular series it ever published.

It was called "Great Personal Events," and the picturesque titles explained them.

He first pictured the enthusiastic evening "When Jenny Lind Sang in Castle Garden," and, as Bok added to pique curiosity, "when people paid $20 to sit in rowboats to hear the Swedish nightingale." This was followed by an account of the astonishing episode "When Henry Ward Beecher Sold Slaves in Plymouth Pulpit"; the picturesque journey "When Louis Kossuth Rode Up Broadway"; the triumphant tour "When General Grant Went Round the World"; the forgotten story of "When an Actress Was the Lady of the White House"; the sensational striking of the rich silver vein "When Mackay Struck the Great Bonanza"; the hitherto little-known instance "When Louis Philippe Taught School in Philadelphia"; and even the lesser-known fact of the residence of the brother of Napoleon Bonaparte in America, "When the King of Spain Lived on the Banks of the Schuylkill"; while the story of "When John Wesley Preached in Georgia" surprised nearly every Methodist, as so few had known that the founder of their church had ever visited America.