Queer Places:
Barnard College (Seven Sisters), 3009 Broadway, New York, NY 10027
55 5th Ave, New York, NY 10003
37 Washington Square W, New York, NY 10011
Mary
Frederika "Freda" Kirchwey (September 26, 1893 – January 3, 1976) was
an
American journalist, editor, and publisher strongly committed
throughout her career to
liberal causes (anti-Fascist,
pro-Soviet, anti-anti-communist).
From 1933 to 1955, she was
Editor
of
The
Nation magazine.[1][2]
She corresponded with Emma Goldman and reviewed Goldman’s book; she was
somewhat condescending in warning her against criticizing USSR because
“the enemy can distort and utilize such opinions as you hold for his own
ends.” She was a member of Friends of Emma Goldman soliciting help when
Goldman had a stroke. In 1942 she was the only woman
owner of a national magazine in the United States.
Born in
Lake Placid, New York in 1893 as the
Progressive Era was getting under way, Kirchwey was the daughter of
pacifist
Columbia Law Professor
George W. Kirchwey.[2]
She attended
Barnard College from 1911 to 1915.
Kirchwey began working locally in journalism after graduation, at the
New York Morning Telegraph,
Every Week magazine, and the
New York Tribune.[2]
In 1918, she was brought to
The
Nation by then editor
Oswald Garrison Villard, largely at the behest of Kirchwey's former
professor at Barnard,
Henry Raymond Mussey, first working in the International Relations
Section. In 1922 she became managing editor. In 1925 Kirchwey, an active
feminist, published Our Changing Morality, a collection of articles
dealing primarily with changing sexual relations. In 1926 she launched
These Modern Women, a set of essays portraying successful feminist
lives, including work by
Crystal Eastman.[2]
Kirchwey also wrote articles in The Nation about early feminists
Susan B. Anthony and
Alice Paul.[2]
She succeeded Villard as editor of the magazine in 1933, first as part of
a four-person committee, then as the sole editor, becoming the first woman
at the top of the
masthead of a national weekly newsmagazine. In 1937, she bought the
magazine from
Maurice Wertheim, who had purchased it from Villard in a brief and
particularly contentious period of the magazine's history.[3]
Kirchwey, as president of Nation Associates, remained editor of the
paper until 1955, when McWilliams became editor and
George Kirstein became publisher.
After 1955, Kirchwey became involved with a collection of
civil rights and pacifist organizations, including the Committee for a
Democratic Spain,
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Committee for
World Development and World Disarmament, the
League of Women Voters, and the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.[2]
In November 1915, Kirchwey married
Evans Clark, then a
Princeton University professor who later worked for
The New York Times. They had three sons, only one of whom survived
to adulthood.[2][7]
She died on January 3, 1976, in
St. Petersburg, Florida.
My published books:
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- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freda_Kirchwey