232. New Yorker Editor Katharine S. White with Amy Reading
KIM: Welcome to Lost Ladies of Lit, the podcast dedicated to dusting off forgotten women writers — and in today’s case, a forgotten magazine editor who discovered and cultivated some of the most important writers in 20th century American literature. I’m Kim Askew, here with my co-host, Amy Helmes, and Amy, maybe we should kick things off by pointing out that this week’s episode coincides with a momentous anniversary.
AMY: That’s right. One hundred years ago this week, The New Yorker published its first issue. A few months later, in the summer of 1925, a young woman named Katharine Sergeant [SUR-GENT] Angell walked into the office and asked for a job, becoming the first woman on the editorial staff. She proceeded to spend the better part of the next 50 years wielding her pen and her editorial influence there, shaping the magazine’s signature pithy voice and carefully tending to an ever-growing stable of talented (sometimes high-maintenance) writers — including one she married and spent the rest of her life with: E.B. White!
KIM: Yes, everyone knows E.B. White of Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little fame (he was called “Andy White” by everyone who knew him). In fact, I just started reading Charlotte’s Web to my daughter. But I’d never heard of Katharine White — I certainly didn’t know how important she is in the history of American letters.
AMY: Same, Kim. Though she was frequently described as “formidable” (an adjective I’m certain we’ll be unpacking today), her lifetime of editorial work falls under the “invisible” nature of editing that we talked about last year in a previous episode.
KIM: Yes, rarely do editors get the credit they deserve, but you can’t celebrate the history of The New Yorker without telling the story of Katharine White — they go hand-in-hand. Lucky for all of us, there’s a new biography on White, published last fall by Harper Collins’ Mariner Books. It’s called The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at The New Yorker, and the author of that book, Amy Reading, is with us today to talk about it.
AMY: Okay, can’t wait — let’s raid the magazine archives and get started!
[intro music plays]
AMY: Today’s guest, Dr. Amy Reading, is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment of the Humanities and the New York Public Library. She wrote a 2012 book on American con-artistry called The Mark Inside: A Perfect Swindle, a Cunning Revenge and a Small History of the Big Con. (Hmmm…Why am I thinking right now might be a really good time to read this book?) But anyway, Booklist calls Amy’s latest book The World She Edited “a literary landmark,” and The Boston Globe named it one of the best books of 2024. Amy is also a fierce champion of the independent bookstore, and her Substack “Open Book” chronicles the state of that industry as well as her own personal adventures as an executive board member of a cooperative bookstore in upstate New York. We’ll link to that in our show notes. Amy, welcome to the show!
AMY R.: [responds]
KIM: So, Amy, what prompted you to want to write this biography, and would you agree that Katharine White is a “lost lady of lit”?
AMY R: [responds]
AMY: Born in 1892 just outside of Boston, Katharine had a privileged middle-class upbringing (though it was not without tragedy). Yet her father and an influential aunt made sure she was surrounded by literature. (you tell a cute story in the book about how her father used to send her to the library each week to pick out two books for him to read — a high-pressure task, but also there’s such a throughline here in what she’d go on to do for her career!) We also see sparks of Katharine’s literary talent in a famous children’s magazine of the time. Tell us about that.
AMY R: [can briefly mention her uncanny winning submission and the fact that both her future husbands would also win badges after she did]
KIM: Katharine received a fine education, attending Bryn Mawr college as an English major in the footsteps of her big sister, the future writer Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant [PRONOUNCED SIR-GENT]. She graduated in 1914, and as you wrote in your book, she expected to have it all -- marriage, family, career -- she was one of the “New Woman” we’ve talked about in past episodes. She married her teenage sweetheart, Ernest Angell. Motherhood became her immediate focus. (She and Ernest had two children). Yet this marriage wasn’t a happy one. Amy, how and why did she end up applying for a job at a fledgling new magazine in New York City?
AMY R: [responds… the job proves a a lifeline, financially and personally]
AMY: The New Yorker was flailing and seemed like a lost cause when Katharine accepted an editing position there. But you write that women proved key to the magazine’s success. How did Katharine recognize and tap into that?
AMY R: [responds… and can also tie this into Katharine’s insistence on featuring women writers]
KIM: So let’s talk more about some of the big-name writers — men and women — whose talent Katharine discovered in the years that followed. Amy, serve us up a list of some of the names most listeners would probably recognize.
AMY R: [responds]
AMY: As I was reading your book, I kept flagging all the women writers you mention throughout, many of whom I was unfamiliar with. Who are some of the women writers popping up in Katharine’s story that are lesser known but who piqued your interest? We’d love to hear about some “lost ladies of lit” that Katharine worked with.
AMY R: [responds]
AMY: As an editor, Katharine really had a nurturing, deeply personal relationship with her writers. This wasn’t just a matter of her being a thoughtful person — this was a deliberate editorial strategy for her, wasn’t it?
AMY R: [responds… you can also talk about her delicacy in writing rejections here and the fact that she had to walk the line of friend and maintain a certain level of objectivity to evaluate writers’ work.]
AMY: You remark several times in the book about an adjective that’s frequently used to describe Katharine: “formidable.” It’s a word that bugs you.
AMY R: [responds]
KIM: Do you have any favorite anecdotes or moments from Katharine’s correspondence or editing notes? Anything that perhaps made you chuckle when you came across it?
AMY R: [responds]
AMY: I thought it was interesting that Katharine didn’t have much involvement in editing Dorothy Parker, who’s such a name we associate so strongly with the magazine.
AMY R: [responds… can also mention here some of the famous names that Katharine actually rejected, ie Gertrude Stein, Harlem Renaissance writers]
KIM: Were there any challenges for Katharine in terms of sexism or being the only woman in a position of power in those first decades at the magazine?
AMY R: [responds… can also maybe mention all the drinking going on “she learned what to ignore, play along with and when to draw the line.”]
KIM: Maybe more than any other American magazine The New Yorker has its own signature style and tone. What elements of the magazine that we still see today can be traced back to Katharine’s influence?
AMY R: [responds]
AMY: We mentioned earlier that her first marriage hit the skids, so let’s talk about her ensuing romance with E.B. White whom she met on the job. On the one hand their relationship seems really adorable, yet on the other hand it seems like Andy was incredibly high-maintenance. Did Katharine sacrifice a lot to his success?
AMY R: [responds… explain how they met, his anxiety issues and also the ways that she supported his career]
KIM: While Katharine was at the magazine she was co-parenting her two children from her first marriage as well as raising a third child she had with Andy. On top of that, it seems like she and Andy both suffered a neverending barrage of medical maladies. Being her sounds absolutely exhausting!
AMY R: [responds… Can also mention here all of the other projects she was tackling on top of the regular New Yorker gig: Children’s Book reviews, Subtreasury of American Humor, etc.]
AMY: Katharine and Andy eventually bought a farm in Blue Hill, Maine, (an area that was also home to a “lost lady” we featured last year on this podcast, Emilie Loring). Here in Maine, Katharine really perfected the OG version of telecommuting. To think of her being on a weekly deadline operating through mail correspondence is fairly impressive! (Especially because she also added “farm duties” to her long to-do list!)
AMY R: [responds]
AMY: It seems like she really attempted to “retire” from the magazine several times over the years (or at least transition to a lesser role), but that was easier said than done. You could argue that she never really fully stepped away; it was too much a part of her life. But I love that as she was easing her way out of the job in her old age, another member of the family stepped in at the magazine.
AMY R: [responds… her influence on Roger and how he was sort of tailor-made to step into an editing role there.]
KIM: At the time of her death in 1977, Katharine Wight was attempting to finally do some writing of her own. She was penning a gardening book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux (gardening was a lifelong passion of hers) but as Andy later described it, “The editor in her fought the writer every inch of the way… she would write eight or ten words, then draw her gun and shoot them down.” That makes me wonder about your own process of writing this biography, Amy. Did you feel like she was looking over your shoulder from beyond the grave, and perhaps judging every word?
AMY R: [responds….]
AMY: It seems like Katharine had a very clear and definite idea about the sort of fiction and poetry that was right for the magazine. It could be great literature and not necessarily right for the magazine’s readership. She was not necessarily looking for literature that was cutting edge or avant garde. How would you assess her impact on 20th century literature?
AMY R: [responds]
AMY: I’ve made a mental note to add the other women writers mentioned in your book to our big spreadsheet of “lost ladies” we hope to someday cover. Congratulations on all the positive press for this book and thank you so much for telling Katharine’s story so beautifully. Again, listeners, the book is called The World She Edited — we highly recommend it.
KIM: Yes, and thank you, Amy, for joining us today to talk about her. It’s been such a great conversation!
[goodbyes, etc]
AMY: So that’s all for today’s episode. I’ll be back next week with another bonus episode. You can get that by subscribing wherever you listen, or visit our Patreon page. Patreon also now sells all of our bonus episodes individually if you can’t commit to a monthly subscription. So feel free to pick and choose if that’s your preference!
KIM: And in two weeks, we’ll be back with another free full-length episode.
AMY: Our theme song was written and performed by Jennie Malone and our logo was designed by Harriet Grant. Lost Ladies of Lit is produced by Amy Helmes and Kim Askew.