It’s the birthday of two American journalists whose lives overlapped in time somewhat, Oswald Garrison Villard (b. 1872 – d. 1949) and Janet Flanner, aka Genêt (b. 1892 – d. 1978). While as far as I know they had nothing to do with each other, both were associated with important magazines and both are interesting in regards to their work around WWII.

Villard was born in Germany but mostly raised in New York City; his father was a journalist who later became rich investing in railroads and his mother was the daughter of the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. Villard studied at Harvard and followed his father into journalism, working for the New York Evening Post and The Nation, both of which his father by then owned. Villard later took over as owner and publisher of both. Villard developed strong political positions that were marked for the time. He was anti-imperialist, and I mean that officially: he co-founded the American Anti-Imperialist League. He was also a co-founder of the NAACP, and while he supported Woodrow Wilson for President in 1912, he later opposed him when it became clear that Wilson would do almost nothing to advocate for African Americans.

Villard was also a passionate pacifist and opposed the U.S. involvement in both WWI and WWII–continuing this position even after Pearl Harbor. It was this that finally caused his isolation from The Nation and the liberal base who had long associated with him. He died in 1949 in New York City, true to his ideals to the end. Note: If you are thinking there is anyone out there who looks more like an Oswald than Villard, then you are mistaken. Google his image.

Flanner was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, twenty years after Villard, studied at the University of Chicago for a couple of years, and returned to her hometown to become the first movie critic at the Indianapolis Star in 1916. (Think what a cutting edge career that was in those days. I mean, what’s a movie?) She married an artist from New York City in 1918, divorced a few years later, and for most of her life was lovers with Solita Solano. She moved to Paris in 1922 and in 1925 became French Correspondent for The New Yorker, then brand new, contributing many “Letters from Paris” and also obituaries and profiles to the magazine. Her writing introduced readers to many new artists and events in Paris. In 1936 she wrote a three-part profile of Hitler entitled Führer in which she observed, “He has a fine library of six thousand volumes, yet he never reads; books would do him no good—his mind is made up.”

Flanner’s book, Paris Journal: 1944–1965, won the 1966 National Book Award for Arts and Letters, though if you want to read her profile of Hitler you need to get your hands on Janet Flanner’s World: Uncollected Writings, 1932–1975. Flanner looks no more and no less like a Janet than any other Janet I’ve come across.

Have a splendid Tuesday, read many books and change your mind as appropriate, and stay scrupulously honest to the data.