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Blackwell, Betsy Talbot (1905?–04 February 1985), fashion editor, was born in New York City, the daughter of Hayden Talbot, a playwright, and Benedict Bristow. After the Talbots were divorced in about 1913, Mrs. Talbot had to find a way to support herself, and her daughter later remembered: “When my mother divorced my father she wasn’t trained for anything … had never worked … didn’t have any experience, but what she did have was a flair for fashion. … Mother knew fashion and she was fortunate enough to be at the right place at the right time.” Benedict Talbot went to work as a fashion stylist for Lord & Taylor department store, setting her daughter an example as a working woman as well as a fashion expert....

Brown, Helen Gurley (18 February 1922–13 August 2012), author, editor, and advice-giver, was born Helen Marie Gurley in Green Forest, Arkansas, the younger of two daughters of Ira Gurley, a schoolteacher, and Cleo Sisco Gurley. When Ira was elected to the state legislature, the family moved to Little Rock. When Helen was ten years old, her father died in a tragic elevator accident in the state house, and her mother was left to support the family. Cleo struggled to raise her daughters in the midst of the Great Depression, and after a few years, in search of greater opportunity, she moved the family to Los Angeles. When Helen’s sister, Mary, contracted polio just a few months later, Helen assumed a significant financial role in the family, one she would maintain for many years....

Chase, Edna Woolman (14 March 1877–20 March 1957), magazine editor, was born in Asbury Park, New Jersey, the daughter of Franklyn Alloway and Laura Woolman. Her parents divorced during her infancy, and her mother remarried and moved to New York City, leaving Edna to be brought up by her maternal grandparents in New Jersey. Her mother’s family were members of the Society of Friends—Laura Woolman was a descendant of ...

Long, Lois (15 December 1901–29 July 1974), fashion critic and columnist, was born in Stamford, Connecticut, the daughter of William J. Long, a Congregationalist minister and lexicographer, and Frances Marsh Bancroft. She earned an A.B. in English from Vassar College in 1922 and immediately moved to New York City to begin a job as a copywriter for ...

Sheppard, Eugenia (1900?–11 November 1984), journalist and author, was born in Columbus, Ohio, the daughter of James Taylor Sheppard and Jane Benbow. Her parents’ occupations are unknown. After attending the Columbus School for Girls, she went to Bryn Mawr, where she majored in French and English and from which she graduated in 1921....

Vreeland, Diana Dalziel (1903?–22 August 1989), fashion editor, was born in Paris, France, the daughter of Frederick Young Dalziel, a Scottish stockbroker, and his American wife, Emily Key Hoffman. As Vreeland recalls in her autobiography, her parents were “racy, pleasure-loving, gala, good-looking Parisians who were part of the whole transition between the Edwardian era and the modern world.” During her childhood they held salons frequented by notables such as Vaslav Nijinsky, Sergey Diaghilev, Ida Rubenstein, ...