Laura Aller

Laura Christiane Aller née Bierring (1849–1917) was a Danish business woman and a pioneering magazine publisher. She first helped her husband Carl Aller to develop his photolithographic method of image production to establish a magazine containing recipes in 1874. The beautifully illustrated Illustreret Familie-Journal published from 1877 proved to be a huge success. Laura Aller not only had a flair for business, she understood exactly what people wanted to read. As editor-in-chief, she translated articles from the foreign press and added her own stories and poetry. After colour was added in 1895, sales increased dramatically and production was moved to larger premises on Vigerslev Allé in Valby. Aller Media, now based on Havneholmen in Copenhagen's South Harbour, is still run by the Aller family.

Biography Born on 14 January 1849 in Copenhagen, Laura Christiane Bierring was the daughter of the herbalist Lauritz Jørgen Bierring (1816–1854) and Christine Clausen (1816–1971). Brought up in a modest Copenhagen home, on 20 October 1871 she married the lithographer Carl Julius Aller (1845–1926) who had become known for inventing a new photolithographic process facilitating the production of multiple copies of the same image.

Laura Aller was instrumental in the magazine's success, handling the accounts, distribution and, above all, content. She not only translated material from foreign sources but wrote short pieces herself, frequently in verse. Within a few years, the magazine was being read by the royal family, city dwellers and country people. Such was the income from sales that the family bought the luxurious Sophienholm manor on Lake Bagsværd and travelled to the south of France in their own railway car.