Gilder Jeannette Leonard was a newspaper correspondent, editor, and critic. Jeannette conducted columns in the New York Herald.
Background
Jeannette Leonard Gilder was the daughter of the Rev. William Henry and Jane (Nutt) Gilder and sister of William Henry and Richard Watson Gilder. She was born on October 3, 1849, at Flushing, Long Island, where her father was conducting a school for girls.
When, after various changes of residence, he became an army chaplain at the opening of the Civil War, the Gilders established themselves at Bordentown, New Jersey.
Education
Jeannette attended school there, and had a term or two in a girls’ boarding school in southern New Jersey; but her formal education ended at the age of fifteen.
Career
For about a year after the death of her father in 1864, Jeannette worked in the office of the state adjutant-general at Trenton, first at transcribing records for an historian of the state troops, later, as a regular clerk.
She had brief experiences in an accountant’s office, as an employee in the United States Mint at Philadelphia, and as copyist in the office of the registrar of deeds at Newark, New Jersey, besides attempting such odd jobs as coloring stereoscopic views.
Her leaning toward journalism had always been strong, and she began her real career with work on the Newark Morning Register, founded by her brother, first as a volunteer writer, but ultimately as a regular member of the staff.
She also served as Newark correspondent of the New York Tribune. After her brother Richard became associate editor of Scribner’s Monthly she was for a little while his assistant, and she afterward conducted literary, dramatic, and musical columns in the New York Herald.
In her literary column, “Chats about Books, ” she adopted the plan of having an American family, faintly reminiscent of the famous Parley group, discuss in their conversations the latest publications.
She was also general and literary New York correspondent for various journals, at one time writing six separate weekly letters over different signatures, besides her work for the Her ald.
In 1881, she and her brother Joseph ventured their small savings in founding in New York the Critic. After the gradual withdrawal of her brother, she succeeded to full editorial control, which she exercised until the Critic was merged in the revived Putnam’s in 1906.
During her active career of fifty years, Gilder compiled several volumes.
None of her work achieved great success, and none of her published writings can be said to live, though as editor and newspaper correspondent, and even as literary critic, she was a figure of note and influence in her day.
During the later years of her life, she conducted a literary brokerage business, and edited and published the Reader. Most of her adult life was spent in New York City, and it was there she died.
Membership
Gilder was a member of the Colony Club.
Personality
Gilder had a sense of humor, and a quick perception of the potential anecdote in a trivial incident or bit of conversation. Her literary criticisms were clever and incisive rather than profound.