Frank Crowninshield

Francis Welch Crowninshield (June 24, 1872 – December 28, 1947) was an American journalist and art and theater critic best known for developing and editing the magazine Vanity Fair for 21 years, making it a pre-eminent literary journal.

Personal life

Crowninshield was born June 24, 1872, in Paris, France, to the Americans Frederic Crowninshield (1845–1918) and his wife, the former Helen Suzette Fairbanks, whom he later called "poor but good" members of the well-heeled Boston Brahmin Crowninshield family. His father, a man of "independent means", was a poet and a respected painter of landscape and murals. He served for two years as director of the American Academy in Rome.

As an adult, Crowninshield lived in New York City, where he was active in the "high-class" social life, as well as an associate of rising artists and writers. He was a member of the exclusive Knickerbocker Club and Union Club. He was also a member of the Dutch Treat Club from 1937 to 1947 and served as one of its vice presidents. An award given by the club in his name was given to Arthur Rubinstein in 1954.

Crowninshield never married.

Vanity Fair

In 1914, Crowninshield – who Vanity Fair later said was considered "the most cultivated, elegant, and endearing man in publishing, if not Manhattan" – was hired by his friend Condé Nast to become editor of the new Vanity Fair. Crowninshield immediately dropped the magazine's fashion elements and helped turn the periodical into a preeminent literary voice of sophisticated American society, a position it held until 1935.