Auslander, Joseph (11 October 1897–22 June 1965), poet, editor, and translator, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Louis Auslander and Martha Asyueck. He attended Columbia University from 1914 to 1915, then transferred to Harvard, receiving his B.A. in 1917. In 1919 he became an instructor in English at Harvard. He pursued graduate studies there until 1924, with the interruption of one year (1921–1922) at the Sorbonne in Paris, where he went on a Parker Traveling Fellowship. His poetry began to appear in national magazines in 1919, and his first volume, ...
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Auslander, Joseph (11 October 1897–22 June 1965), poet, editor, and translator
Richard Boudreau
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Brownson, Henry Francis (1835-1913), editor and publisher
Earl Boyea
Brownson, Henry Francis (07 August 1835–19 December 1913), editor and publisher, was born in Canton, Massachusetts, the son of Orestes Augustus Brownson, a philosopher and publisher, and Sarah Healy. Handicapped somewhat in youth by poor health, Brownson nonetheless excelled in school. He attended Holy Cross College from 1844 until 1848, when he was thirteen. On 18 November 1844, a month after his father’s conditional baptism into the church, he was baptized into the Roman Catholic church. He was joined at the college chapel font by his brother William Brownson; by ...
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Burnett, Whit (1899-1973), anthologist, editor, and short story writer
Dalton Gross and MaryJean Gross
Burnett, Whit (14 August 1899–22 April 1973), anthologist, editor, and short story writer, was born Whitney Ewing Burnett in Salt Lake City, Utah, the son of Benjamin James Burnett, a contractor, and Anna Marian Christensen. He began his career in 1916 working as a reporter for a newspaper in Salt Lake City. His other early positions included reporter for the ...
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Clarke, Mary Bayard Devereux (1827-1886), poet and editor
William S. Powell
Clarke, Mary Bayard Devereux (13 May 1827–30 March 1886), poet and editor, was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, the daughter of Thomas Pollock Devereux—Yale graduate, lawyer, and owner of several large plantations—and Catherine Anne Johnson, great-granddaughter of Samuel Johnson (1696–1772), first president of King’s College (now Columbia University) in New York. Among her other ancestors were five colonial governors. Her brother, John, was educated at Yale; and after her mother’s death in 1836, Mary and her sisters were taught at home by an English governess who closely followed the Yale course of study....
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Coggeshall, William Turner (1824-1867), journalist, state librarian, and diplomat
Leigh Johnsen
Coggeshall, William Turner (06 September 1824–02 August 1867), journalist, state librarian, and diplomat, was born in Lewistown, Pennsylvania, the son of William C. Coggeshall, a coachsmith, and Eliza Grotz. At the age of eighteen he headed west and settled in Akron, Ohio. There he launched his career by starting the ...
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Collins, Isaac (1746-1817), printer
Richard F. Hixson
Collins, Isaac (16 February 1746–21 March 1817), printer, was born near Centerville, Delaware, the son of Charles Collins and Sarah Hammond, farmers. The family were members of the Society of Friends. When his father died in 1760, Isaac was indentured as a printer’s apprentice to James Adams, whose recent arrival in Wilmington marked the beginning of printing in Delaware. Collins stayed with Adams about five years, during which time he probably met Shepard Kollock, another Adams apprentice, who, like Collins, later worked for ...
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Conroy, Jack (05 December 1898–28 February 1990), author and editor
Robert L. Gale
Conroy, Jack (05 December 1898–28 February 1990), author and editor, was born John Wesley Conroy in Monkey Nest, a coal-mining camp near Moberly, Missouri, the son of Thomas E. Conroy, a coal miner and union organizer, and Eliza Jane McCollough McKiernan. Conroy’s father was killed in a mine explosion in 1909. Two years later his mother married an unreliable alcoholic; Conroy left school at the age of thirteen to work in a Wabash Railroad car shop in Moberly. He joined two railroad workers’ unions and became an officer in one. In his free time he read voraciously, developed a prodigious memory, attended church and rowdy gatherings alike, and enjoyed listening to old timers’ yarns. When the United States entered World War I, Conroy, though an anticapitalist pacifist, sought to enlist but was rejected because of a heart murmur....
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Dannay, Frederic (1905-1982), writer and editor of mystery and detective novels and short stories
Peter E. Morgan
Dannay, Frederic (20 October 1905–03 September 1982), writer and editor of mystery and detective novels and short stories, was born Daniel Nathan in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Meyer H. Nathan, a liquor dealer, and Dora Walerstein. After graduating from Boys’ High School, Brooklyn, Dannay worked primarily as an advertising copywriter until he became a full-time fiction writer in 1931. He married three times: in 1926 to Mary Beck, with whom he had two children; in 1947 to Hilda Wiesenthal, with whom he had one child before her death in 1972; and in 1976 to Rose Koppel....
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Dunbar-Nelson, Alice (1875-1935), poet, journalist, and political activist
Janel Telhorst
Dunbar-Nelson, Alice (19 July 1875–18 September 1935), poet, journalist, and political activist, was born Alice Ruth Moore in New Orleans, Louisiana, the daughter of Joseph Moore, a seaman, and Patricia Wright, a seamstress. Dunbar-Nelson graduated from Straight College (now Dillard University) and began her teaching career at a New Orleans elementary school in 1892....
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Foley, Martha (1897-1977), editor and writer
Jay Neugeboren
Foley, Martha (21 March 1897–05 September 1977), editor and writer, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the daughter of Irish-American parents, Walter Foley, a physician, and Millicent McCarty, a schoolteacher who had also written a novel and a book of verse. When both of her parents fell ill, Foley was sent with her half-brother to stay with a family who, she later wrote, “either did not like or did not understand children.” It was a harsh and brutal period in her life, mitigated only, she recalled, by the fact that her parents’ library went with her. “Those books became home to me,” she wrote, “the only home I was to know for a long time.”...
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Franklin, Ann Smith (1696-1763), printer and editor
Robert L. Gale
Franklin, Ann Smith (02 October 1696–19 April 1763), printer and editor, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the daughter of Samuel Smith and Anna (or Ann; maiden name unknown). She grew up in Boston.
In light of her later successful career, it is reasonable to conclude that she was at least as well educated as most girls of her era. In 1723 she married ...
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Gaine, Hugh (1726-1807), printer-editor and bookseller
Marion Barber Stowell
Gaine, Hugh (1726–25 April 1807), printer-editor and bookseller, was born in Portglenone in the parish of Ahoghill, Ireland, the son of Hugh Gaine and his wife (name unknown). At age fourteen he began his apprenticeship to Samuel Wilson and James Magee, Belfast printers. When the partnership split in 1744, Gaine left Ireland for America and settled in New York City, where he became a printer’s journeyman for ...
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Grier, Barbara (4 Nov. 1933–10 Nov. 2011), editor and publisher
Joanne E. Passet
Grier, Barbara (4 Nov. 1933–10 Nov. 2011), editor and publisher, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Phillip Grier, a pharmaceutical salesman, and Dorothy Black, a stenographer from a theatrical family. Her parents separated when she was ten and divorced four years later. Raised by her mother, Grier and two younger sisters spent their childhoods in Michigan, Colorado, and Kansas. She graduated from Wyandotte High School in Kansas City, Kansas, in ...
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Griswold, Rufus Wilmot (1815-1857), editor and anthologist
Judy Myers Laue
Griswold, Rufus Wilmot (13 February 1815–27 August 1857), editor and anthologist, was born on a farm in Benson, Vermont, the son of Rufus Griswold, a tanner and farmer, and Deborah Wass. Griswold’s early career consisted of a series of editorial and printing jobs for small-town papers in Vermont and New York. When ...
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Hall, James (1793-1868), writer and editor
Dean G. Hall
Hall, James (29 July 1793–05 July 1868), writer and editor, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of John Hall, the secretary of the Pennsylvania land office and a U.S. marshal, and Sarah Ewing ( Sarah Ewing Hall). He was educated at home until entering an academy in Lamberton, New Jersey, in 1805. He studied law with his uncle Samuel Ewing. In March 1813 Hall volunteered for the Washington Guard, was transferred to the Ordnance Department, was promoted to first lieutenant, and chose his duty to be at the Pittsburgh arsenal, where he could also continue his law study with ...
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Lawson, James (1799-1880), editor, author, and insurance broker
Ali Lang-Smith
Lawson, James (09 November 1799–24 March 1880), editor, author, and insurance broker, was born in Glasgow, Scotland, the son of James Lawson, a merchant. His mother’s identity is not known. Lawson entered the University of Glasgow at the age of thirteen but presumably did not graduate because he left Scotland in 1815. Settling in New York, he worked as an accountant in the firm of Alexander Thomson & Co., which was owned by and named for his maternal uncle. Lawson became a member of the firm in 1822 and remained there until 1826, when the company failed. This turned out to be a rather opportune event; Lawson had been sending submissions of his writing to his long-time friend James G. Brooks, one of the founders of the weekly ...
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Sargent, Epes (1813-1880), author and editor
Robert L. Gale
Sargent, Epes (27 September 1813–30 December 1880), author and editor, was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, the son of Epes Sargent, a shipmaster, and Hannah Dane Coffin. In 1818 the family moved to Boston, where the father became a merchant before returning to the sea. Young Sargent attended the Boston Latin School from 1823 until 1829, during which time he interrupted his studies to accompany his father on a voyage to St. Petersburg, Russia. It is said, but evidently cannot be confirmed, that Sargent then briefly enrolled at Harvard....
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Zevin, Israel Joseph (1872-1926), writer
Gert Buelens
Zevin, Israel Joseph (31 January 1872–06 October 1926), writer, was born in Gorki, Mogilov district, Belorussia, the son of Judah Leib Zevin (occupation unknown) and Feige Muravin. He grew up in the Pale of Settlement, receiving a traditional Jewish-Orthodox education.
In 1889 he immigrated to New York City, where he tried to make a living at various of the typical immigrant jobs. First he was a peddler; then he graduated to selling candy and other wares from a stand. In his spare time he wrote stories that were published in the ...
