Jane Grant was an American journalist, free-lance writer, and feminist.
Background
Grant was born on May 29, 1892, in Joplin, Missouri, the second daughter of Robert T. Grant and Sophrona Cole. Her father, a farmer and merchant of Scottish-Irish ancestry, had originally come from Canada. On her mother's side she claimed descent from the famous abolitionist John Brown.
Education
Grant was raised in Missouri and Kansas, attending public schools. At the age of sixteen she went to New York City to prepare for a musical career, but her real talent turned out to be journalism.
Career
Grant worked briefly for Collier's Weekly and in 1912 joined the New York Times. Assured at first that "women were merely tolerated at the Times, " she came to the attention of manager Carl V. Van Anda. She steadily advanced to become the paper's first woman general assignment reporter at the foremost news operation in the country. After America entered World War I, Grant began working in Paris for the Young Men's Christian Association. She became acquainted with Harold W. Ross, an American soldier who had just become editor of a newly founded army newspaper, Stars and Stripes. Ross was a shy, ungainly Coloradan who planned to return to the West Coast after his discharge. Grant convinced him to consider New York City. After the war she returned to her job at the New York Times. With her husband, they agreed to live on her salary and to save Ross's earnings for a new publication. She approached Raoul Fleischmann, heir to a bread-baking fortune, for a commitment of $25, 000 and, on February 21, 1925, the first issue of the New Yorker appeared. Within a year, the humorous and sophisticated weekly was a success. Grant has been called "midwife" for the magazine. She described her time at the magazine in a book entitled Ross, the New Yorker, and Me (1968). Grant helped administer the magazine for the next six years while continuing her work for the New York Times. She also wrote articles for the Saturday Evening Post, the American Mercury, and other periodicals. She became active in women's causes, describing the origins of her commitment in an essay, "Confessions of a Feminist. " On the day of her wedding to Ross, she was "jolted" out of apathy when one of the witnesses called her "Mrs. Ross. " She formed the Lucy Stone League in 1921, on behalf of married women who wanted to maintain their maiden names. Jane Grant was known for her lively repartee. She was one of the wits who made up the famous "Round Table, " a luncheon gathering at New York's Algonquin Hotel. In her final years, she operated White Flower Farm, a retail plant and seed operation in Litchfield, Connecticut. Grant died of cancer in Litchfield on March 16, 1972.
Achievements
Connections
Grant married Harold Ross on March 27, 1920. They had no children. She was divorced from Ross in 1929, and married William B. Harris, an editor of Fortune magazine, on December 8, 1939; they had no children.