The Barbizon by Paulina Bren (ebook reader browser TXT) 📕

Billy Jo was a twenty-year-old college dropout: Greene, “Lone Women,” November 24, 1957.

From 5:00 to 6:00 p.m.: Greene, “Lone Women,” November 25, 1957.

On this particular late afternoon: Greene, “Lone Women,” November 25, 1957.

In March 1934, a Mrs. Edith La Tour: “Wife of Merchant Plunges to Death,” New York Times, March 2, 1934.

Only the Chicago Daily Tribune: “Chicago Girl a Suicide,” Chicago Daily Tribune, April 3, 1935.

In 1939, twenty-two-year-old Judith Ann Palmer: “Girl Ends Her Life in Hotel Room Here,” New York Times, July 9, 1939. And “Ends Life in New York,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 9, 1939.

Malachy McCourt himself knew: Malachy McCourt, interview with the author, New York City, April 15, 2016.

Gloria Barnes Harper, with lagoon-blue eyes: Gloria Barnes Harper, interview with the author, New York City, April 16, 2015.

It was the hypocrisy: McCourt, interview.

In those days, on the respectable Upper East Side: McCourt, interview with the author.

Malachy would later write: McCourt, A Monk Swimming, 33.

The phrase persisted: Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar (New York: Harper Perennial, 2005), 72.

When the question of Barbara Chase’s potential: Edward M. McGlynn, memo to BTB, May 28, 1956, box 2 correspondence, 1948–1961, BTBC.

There were questions: WAT, confidential memo to BTB, April 13, 1956, box 3 correspondence, 1951–1964, BTBC.

Yet anticipating this issue: McGlynn, memo to BTB.

Barbara arrived in New York: Barbara Chase-Riboud, interview with the author, New York City, November 13, 2018.

In her Mademoiselle bio: Johnnie Johnstone, “Memo from the Guest Editor,” Mademoiselle, August 1956, College Issue, 254.

Barbara guessed that: Chase-Riboud, interview.

Fashion editor Edie Locke: Edie Raymond Locke, interview with the author, Thousand Oaks, CA, October 25–26, 2018.

Another article is about integration: Virginia Voss, “University of Alabama,” Mademoiselle, August 1956, College Issue, 310.

One GE was instantly in awe: Emilie Griffin, “The Lure of Fame: The Yearning, the Drive, the Question Mark,” in Ambition: Essays by Members of the Chrysostom Society, eds. Luci Shaw and Jeanne Murray Walker (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2016), 37–38.

She never spotted another African American: Chase-Riboud, interview.

In the annual rite of passage: Johnnie Johnstone, “Memo from the Guest Editor,” 202.

In 1961, Willette Murphy: Cody Bay, “Willette Murphy Made History as a Black Woman in 1961. But It’s No Big Deal: She’s Used to That,” On This Day in Fashion, July 27, 2010.

In the “We Hitch Our Wagons” series: “We Hitch Our Wagons,” Mademoiselle, August 1956, College Issue, 257.

Barbara would later write: From Barbara Chase-Riboud’s unpublished manuscript about her travels through Europe told through her letters home: “I Always Knew,” 14, generously shared with the author.

CHAPTER EIGHT

At first glance, Sylvia Plath: Andrew Wilson, Mad Girl’s Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted (New York: Scribner, 2013), 197.

Mary Cantwell, who would go on: Neva Nelson, interview with the author, Cape May, NJ, May 21, 2016.

She was “afraid to take the subway”: Mary Cantwell, “Manhattan, When I Was Young,” in Manhattan Memoir (New York: Penguin, 2000), 151.

In her view, Abels was basically: Cantwell, “Manhattan,” 155.

Abels proscribed to the rule: Cantwell, “Manhattan,” 156.

During the interview, Mary made it clear: Cantwell, “Manhattan,” 153.

The Street & Smith building on Madison: Cantwell, “Manhattan,” 161.

Lunch, much like hats: Cantwell, “Manhattan,” 161.

Even then, finding “the best”: Cantwell, “Manhattan,” 161.

Clothing, just like hats: Cantwell, “Manhattan,” 158.

Even as she had the fresh, young look: Cantwell, “Manhattan,” 164.

The drugstore “employed”: Cantwell, “Manhattan,” 161–62.

Sylvia Plath and Neva Nelson had often gone: Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953 (New York: Harper, 2013), 102.

In The Bell Jar: Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar (New York: Harper Perennial, 2005), 77–78.

In 1951, a petition: Petition November 30, 1951, box 4 correspondence, 1945–1965, BTBC.

One of her first tasks: Cantwell, “Manhattan,” 152.

Mary Cantwell asked her boss: Cantwell, “Manhattan,” 153.

Edie Locke, then assistant fashion editor: Edie Raymond Locke, telephone interview with the author, April 12, 2016.

Many years later, Mary Cantwell: Cantwell, “Manhattan,” 153.

In 1956, Polly Weaver: Winder, Pain, Parties, Work, 169.

In her journal Sylvia Plath: Winder, Pain, Parties, Work, 128.

In memo after memo: Nancy Lynch, memo to Cyrilly Abels [hereafter cited as CA], June 17, 1953, box 6 correspondence, 1953, BTBC.

“I must say this is far from”: MW, memo to CA, June 17, 1953, box 6 correspondence, 1953, BTBC.

“should be read with interest”: JBM, memo to CA, June 17, 1953, box 6 correspondence, 1953, BTBC.

“this certainly should hit our readers”: Leslie Felker, memo to CA, June 17, 1953, box 6 correspondence, 1953, BTBC.

The debate around the Kinsey Report: Memo: REPORT ON KINSEY REPORT (confidential), June 19, 1953, box 6 correspondence, 1953, BTBC.

Neva Nelson offered: Neva Nelson, 1955, San Jose State, memo to CA re: Kinsey Report, June 19, 1953, box 6 correspondence, 1953, BTBC.

Janet Wagner was game: Janet Wagner, 1954, Knox College, memo to CA re: Kinsey Report, June 19, 1953, box 6 correspondence, 1953, BTBC.

Laurie Glazer was perhaps the most direct: Laurie Glazer, 1953, University of Michigan, memo to CA re: Kinsey Report, June 19, 1953, box 6 correspondence, 1953, BTBC.

Carol LeVarn, Sylvia’s best friend: Carol LeVarn, 1953, Sweet Briar College, memo to CA re: Kinsey Report, June 19, 1953, box 6 correspondence, 1953, BTBC.

Sylvia Plath wrote the longest report: Sylvia Plath, 1954, Smith, memo to CA re: Kinsey Report, June 19, 1953, box 6 correspondence, 1953, BTBC.

The kind of frankness Sylvia showed: Plath, Bell Jar, 81.

That very night, when the guest editors: BTB, memo to Gerald Smith, June 18, 1953, box 6 correspondence, 1953, BTBC.

But by the next day: Bob Park, memo to BTB, June 19, 1953, box 6 correspondence, 1953, BTBC.

Guest editor Dinny Lain (later Diane Johnson): Diane Johnson, “Nostalgia,” Vogue, September 2003, 208.

As another 1953 GE explained: Winder, Pain, Parties, Work, 154.

Mary Cantwell witnessed: Winder, Pain, Parties, Work, 155.

John Appleton had wanted: Neva Nelson, interview with the author, Cape May, NJ, May 21, 2016. With follow-up correspondence in June 2020.

Toward the end of the month: Laurie Levy, “Outside the Bell Jar,” in Sylvia Plath: The Woman & the Work, ed. Edward Butscher (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1985), 46.

In The Bell Jar, Sylvia wrote: Plath, Bell Jar, 85.

Diane Johnson returned home: Diane Johnson, telephone interview with