It is Women’s History Month. Who celebrates Jane Grant as the co-founder of The New Yorker? Was it, perhaps, The New Yorker? Or newyorker.com? Or another Condé Nast publication, such as Vanity Fair or Vogue? You’d be wrong in every case, just like you’d be wrong to choose The New York Times, where Grant was the first female reporter in the city room, before World War I. The one (and only one) place that recognizes Continue Reading →
In thirty days is the centennial of American entry in World War I on April 6. To mark the occasion, beginning today I am going to post a daily countdown with a different sketch by Private C. LeRoy Baldridge. He was a sketch artist in the war and his work was widely distributed. I am going to post these images daily until April 6 on my Tumbler, Twitter, and Facebook Page. Here is a little Continue Reading →
A new video surfaced recently that’s just sensational to watch for anyone that adores the 1920s and the Algonquin Round Table era. It is called New York in the Twenties, and first aired on American TV in 1961. This has to be one of the best videos of the era. The amount of home movies found in the piece is amazing. Among the 1920s celebrities included in it are Heywood Broun, Enrico Caruso, Charlie Chaplin, Continue Reading →
Everyone is jumping up and down to celebrate (well, the nerds I follow), about The New Yorker turning 90 today. In every story Jane Grant gets left out. In my book and on my walking tour I say what her husband, Harold Ross, said: without her there’d be no magazine today. My book lays it out. But I truly believe if he’d started the magazine with a man, like a brother or partner, it would Continue Reading →
Letter from Harold Ross of The New Yorker to Frank Sullivan, both were Vicious Circle members. What I find ironic is now The New Yorker will use this language regularly. He also mentions John O’Hara.
This is some of the research from my new book The Algonquin Round Table New York: A Historical Guide (Lyons Press).