Co-Founders

Journalists Jane Grant and Harold Ross met in France during World War I. Grant, the first female reporter to work on the city desk of The New York Times, had traveled overseas to perform as a singer and dancer for American troops. Ross edited the military newspaper Stars and Stripes. The two fell in love and, upon their return to New York City, married. While Ross developed The New Yorker’s concept, it was Grant who secured the magazine’s practical necessities, finding financial backing and recruiting important contributors like Janet Flanner, who became the magazine’s Paris correspondent. Grant and Ross divorced in 1929, but Grant remained involved in The New Yorker’s management, behind the scenes, for decades.