Betsy Talbot Blackwell (1905 – February 4, 1985) was an editor of several
women's magazines
This is a list of women's magazines from around the world. These are magazines that have been published primarily for a readership of women.
Currently published
*'' 10 Magazine'' (UK - distributed worldwide)
*''Al Jamila'' (Saudi Arabia)
*'' All ...
, best known for being the editor-in-chief of ''
Mademoiselle'' from 1937 to 1971.
Under her leadership, sales surged to nearly one million by the time she retired. In 1970, amidst the burgeoning women's liberation movement, Blackwell published an issue titled "The New Sex," paying tribute to the rise of the individualistic American woman, and she was one of the first editors to publish
Gloria Steinem
Gloria Marie Steinem (; born March 25, 1934) is an American journalist and social-political activist who emerged as a nationally recognized leader of second-wave feminism in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Steinem was a c ...
.
Biography
Blackwell was born in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
to Hayden Talbot, a playwright and author, and Benedict B. Talbot, a stylist. She was educated at St. Elizabeth's Academy, a Catholic girls' school, though she was not a Catholic.
Blackwell began her career as an assistant fashion editor at ''Charm'' magazine from 1923 to 1928, afterwards becoming a fashion editor at ''Mademoiselle'' under the assumed name of Elizabeth Rich. From 1937 until her retirement in 1971, she served as the editor-in-chief of the magazine.
During her tenure at ''Mademoiselle'', Blackwell oversaw increased circulation—from 178,000 in 1939 to 540,000 in 1953 to nearly a million in 1971
—a change in focus towards young career women and the introduction of a literary aspect to the magazine.
Many well-known authors were published in ''Mademoiselle'' during her time as editor-in-chief, including
Eudora Welty
Eudora Alice Welty (April 13, 1909 – July 23, 2001) was an American short story writer, novelist and photographer who wrote about the American South. Her novel '' The Optimist's Daughter'' won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty received numerou ...
,
Truman Capote
Truman Garcia Capote ( ; born Truman Streckfus Persons; September 30, 1924 – August 25, 1984) was an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright and actor. Several of his short stories, novels, and plays have been praised as literary classics, ...
,
William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most o ...
, and
Joyce Carol Oates.
During her editorship, the magazine started the practice of allowing college women to write and publish an issue each summer. The summer guest editorship program included
Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath (; October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for two of her published collections, '' Th ...
,
[Biographical file: Betsy Talbot Blackwell, circa 1960s.]
Box 1. Folder 1. Series III: Personal. American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming
The University of Wyoming (UW) is a public land-grant research university in Laramie, Wyoming. It was founded in March 1886, four years before the territory was admitted as the 44th state, and opened in September 1887. The University of Wyoming ...
. Joan Didion
Joan Didion (; December 5, 1934 – December 23, 2021) was an American writer. Along with Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson and Gay Talese, she is considered one of the pioneers of New Journalism. Didion's career began in the 1950s after she won ...
,
Mona Simpson
Mona Simpson (née Jandali; June 14, 1957) is an American novelist. She has written six novels and studied English at the University of California, Berkeley and Languages and Literature at Columbia University.
She won a Whiting Award for her fir ...
,
Ann Beattie
Ann Beattie (born September 8, 1947) is an American novelist and short story writer. She has received an award for excellence from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and the PEN/Malamud Award for excellence in the short story f ...
,
Francine du Plessix Gray
Francine du Plessix Gray (September 25, 1930 – January 13, 2019), was a French-American Pulitzer Prize–nominated writer and literary critic.
Early life and education
She was born on September 25, 1930, in Warsaw, Poland, where her father ...
,
Meg Wolitzer
Meg Wolitzer (born May 28, 1959) is an American novelist, known for '' The Wife'', ''The Ten-Year Nap'', ''The Uncoupling,'' ''The Interestings'', and ''The Female Persuasion.'' She works as an instructor in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southa ...
,
Betsey Johnson
Betsey Johnson (born 1942) is an American fashion designer best known for her feminine and whimsical designs. Many of her designs are considered "over the top" and embellished. She also is known for doing a cartwheel ending in a split at the ...
,
Ali MacGraw
Elizabeth Alice MacGraw (born April 1, 1939) is an American actress and activist. She gained attention with her role in the film ''Goodbye, Columbus'' (1969), for which she won the Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer. She gained an ...
, and
Diane Johnson
Diane Johnson (born Diane Lain, April 28, 1934), is an American novelist and essayist whose satirical novels often feature American heroines living abroad in contemporary France. She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for her novel ''Persian ...
.
"My Mademoiselle Summer"
Meg Wolitzer, ''New York Times'', July 13, 2013.
She died in 1985 while being treated for emphysema. She was survived by her son and stepdaughter through her marriage to James Madison Blackwell.University of Wyoming
The University of Wyoming (UW) is a public land-grant research university in Laramie, Wyoming. It was founded in March 1886, four years before the territory was admitted as the 44th state, and opened in September 1887. The University of Wyoming ...
.
Awards
In 1942, she received the Neiman Marcus Fashion Award The Neiman Marcus Award for Distinguished Service in the Field of Fashion was a yearly award created in 1938 by Carrie Marcus Neiman and Stanley Marcus. Unlike the Coty Award, it was not limited to American-based fashion designers. Recipients of th ...
for her contributions to fashion, and in 1949 became the first woman to be elected to the board of New York publisher Street & Smith
Street & Smith or Street & Smith Publications, Inc. was a New York City publisher specializing in inexpensive paperbacks and magazines referred to as dime novels and pulp fiction. They also published comic books and sporting yearbooks. Among t ...
.
References
External links
Betsy Talbot Blackwell Papers
at the American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming
The University of Wyoming (UW) is a public land-grant research university in Laramie, Wyoming. It was founded in March 1886, four years before the territory was admitted as the 44th state, and opened in September 1887. The University of Wyoming ...
.
Further reading
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blackwell, Betsy
1905 births
1985 deaths
20th-century American women journalists
American magazine editors
Journalists from New York City
20th-century American journalists
Women magazine editors