232. Katharine S. White — Shaping The New Yorker, with Amy Reading

One hundred years ago this week, The New Yorker published its first issue. A few months later, the magazine’s first (and for decades, only) female editor joined the staff. Katharine S. White spent the better part of the next 50 years wielding her pen and her editorial influence there, carefully tending to an ever-growing stable of talented (sometimes high-maintenance) writers and shaping the magazine into a cultural powerhouse. Biographer Amy Reading joins us to discuss White’s life, legacy and undeniable importance in the history of 20th-century American letters.

Mentioned in this episode:

The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at The New Yorker by Amy Reading

Katharine S. White

Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant

E.B. White

Katharine and E.B. White’s farm in Blue Hill, Maine

St. Nicholas magazine

American Heritage article on St. Nicholas magazine

Women authors discovered/edited by Katharine White

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 187 on Kay Boyle

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 184 on Elizabeth Taylor

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 158 on Sylvia Townsend Warner