The Barbizon by Paulina Bren (best novels to read for students .TXT) 📗

Nelson, whose herculean efforts to reunite the 1953 class of Mademoiselle guest editors turned her into an archivist and truth-teller. Peggy LaViolette Powell, whom I have only met over the telephone, although many times, and who is as fun as can be, and with a memory that puts the rest of us to shame. I flew to California to meet former Mademoiselle editor-in-chief, the late Edie Raymond Locke, then ninety-seven years old, spending two delightful afternoons with her and her husband. My conversations with Phyllis Lee Levin, who is still publishing books in her nineties, are something I cherish. Malachy McCourt, the Irish writer and bon vivant, was as charming as expected at the Upper West Side restaurant where we met, but I also thank him for his sincerity and insight. Barbara Chase-Riboud, who agreed to meet while she was in New York at the Yale Club, visiting from her home bases and studio in Milan and Paris, was a phenomenon, still electrifying. Barbizon/63 manager Tony Monaco’s appreciation of the hotel’s history made for good conversation. Others I would like to thank for sharing their time and memories are Gayle Baizer, Lanie Bernhard, Joan Gage, Gael Greene, Amy Gross, the late Gloria Harper, Diane Johnson, Lorraine Davies Knopf, Laurie Glazer Levy, Ali MacGraw, Dolores Phelps, Jane Phipps, Janet Wagner Rafferty (and her daughter Christina Sciammas), Phylicia Rashad, Sue Ann Robinson, Patty Sicular, Jaclyn Smith, Nena Thurman, and Judi Wax.

Researching the Barbizon also confirmed my faith in the generosity of those who teach, write, and create. Janet Burroway, writer and professor, shared her remarkable cache of personal letters home from June 1955. Melodie Bryant, who started on a documentary about the Barbizon about a year before I began my research, abandoned it after significant work but shared her video interviews with me. Others responded to my queries with equal generosity of spirit: Heather Clark, Miriam Cohen, Tracy Daugherty, Rose A. Doherty, Nyna Giles, Teresa Griffiths, Halley K. Harrisburg, Kristen Iversen, Mark Weston, and Timothy White. For archival access, I thank the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming, Laramie; the New-York Historical Society Archives; and the Condé Nast Archives. Many thanks to University of Wyoming students Skye Terra Cranney and Baylee Staufenbiel, who photographed copious Mademoiselle memos on my behalf, and to Leah Cates, Vassar graduate who tackled the endnotes. I am grateful for funding from Vassar College’s Emily Floyd Fund and the Lucy Maynard Salmon Research Fund. Vassar College not only offered financial support but my Vassar colleagues and friends cheered me on throughout.

I feel so fortunate to have Emily Graff as my editor; she has a rare talent for seeing the entirety of a book before it is there, and her editorial wisdom spurred me on throughout. Tremendous thanks also to Morgan Hart, the most patient production editor, and to editorial assistant Lashanda Anakwah. Deepfelt thanks to my far-flung academic friends who continue to provide intellectual sustenance; to my dear Wesleyan friends with whom both banalities and milestones are unfailingly celebrated (and especially to Anne Dunham, Vivian Trakinski, and Adrienne FitzGerald, who lent help at various times); to my friends in numerous locales and countries who are always there for a dinner date; and to the novelist Daphne Uviller, my café writing partner. A special thanks for the love and support from my parents in New York, my sister and her family in San Francisco, and my in-laws in Hungary. This book is dedicated to my lovely husband, Zoltán, and our daughter, Zsofi.

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1944

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BOUT THE

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© ADAM PATANE

Paulina Bren is a professor at Vassar College in New York, where she teaches international, gender, and media studies. She is the author of a prize-winning book about soap operas and communism behind the Iron Curtain and co-editor of a collection on consumerism in the Eastern Bloc. Born in the former Czechoslovakia, Paulina spent her childhood in the UK before moving to the United States. She attended Wesleyan University as an undergraduate, later receiving an MA in International Studies from the University of Washington and a PhD in History from New York University. She has held a host of research grants and fellowships, including residencies in Berlin, Budapest, Vienna, and Atlanta. She currently lives in the Bronx with her husband and daughter.

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INTRODUCTION

They felt empowered: Ali MacGraw, telephone interview with the author, April 5, 2016.

CHAPTER ONE

It was not until James McGough: Kristen Iversen, Molly Brown: Unraveling the Myth (Boulder, CO: Johnson Books, 2010), 13–29, 169.

She wired her Denver attorney: “Mrs Margaret Brown,” Encyclopedia Titanic, updated August 22, 2017, https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-survivor/molly-brown.html.

She had both wit and spirit: Iversen, Molly Brown, 233.

She once wrote of herself: Iversen, Molly Brown, 236.

Humble as it might be: Letters between Margaret Tobin Brown and Estelle Ballow, 1931, Molly Brown Collection, Denver Public Library Digital Collection.

She most likely participated in meetings of the Pegasus Group: “Books and Authors,” New York Times, March 5, 1933.

The front entrance of the club-hotel: Gale Harris, “Barbizon Hotel for Women,” Landmarks Preservation Commission, Designation List 454 LP-2495, April 17, 2012, 4, http://npclibrary.org/db/bb_files/2012-BarbizonHotelforWomen.pdf.

Critics of nineteenth-century New York: “Color Splashes in the City’s Drabness,” New York Times, October 9, 1927.

In the midst of this building boom: “Temple Rodeph Sholom Sells 63d St. Site,” New York Times, January 31, 1926.

The