For those of you who may be less familiar with the general society, and if you dont mind i will ask, how many of you here this evening with this be your first visit . Well, a warm welcome, and also of course a welcome back to previous attendees. The general society was founded in 1785 by 22 artisans. Today, our 234 year Old Organization continues to serve the people of the city of new york. We do this through our cultural and educational programs. They include our lecture series, of which of course denies lecture is a part of. Our general Society Library which will be celebrating 200 years next year. Our tuition free mechanics institute, and that John Loughlin locked collection which you are welcomeec to visit after our talk this evening, and that is upstairs. You will find more information on the blue and white cards on your suit. Now, we have such a wonderful start to this years lecture season and with the pleasure of welcoming critically acclaimed susan ronald who tonight will discuss her biography of conde nast, the publishing legend of vote and vanity fair and other illustrious publications. I also want to mention if youve not already done so, you have an opportunity to purchase this wonderful book, with its stunning cover later this evening so please be aware you had this opportunity and im sure susan would be happy to find the book for you. I also want to mention that cspan is also filming this talk tonight, so this program will also be rebroadcast on booktv. And when we do get to the q a portion, i want to remind you that anyone was asking a question, that you also have the opportunity to be featured on booktv. Born and raised inn the United States, ms. Ronald has lived in england for more than 25 years and has come over especially this week to talk about her book. She is the author of a dangerous woman, hitlers art thief, hieratic queen, the pirate queen, and shakespeares daughter. It is myofof considerable please to introduce to you susan ronald. [applause] thank you, everybody. I just hope our technical programs are at an end. So you may see this musical dots on the bottom. Write about conde nast really because i tend to write about power and greed. All of the people ive written about before, theres another book which isnt andra, have been very powerful people, some of them have been greedy, almost all of them have at had some st of a brush with the law. But after dangerous woman, about Florence Gould was back to the youngest son of jacob gould, many of you will certainly know of,ge i decided that having written about someone who was incredibly powerful, incredibly devious and also the banker to Hermann Goring by the end of the war, and never ever was tried for dastardly deeds, i need to cleanse myself. I wantnt to write about a really good person. So i told this to my agent and my publisher, and they just looked blankly at me said youre right about power and greed. How could you write about a nice person . It was my agent who suggested i have a look at the publishing there anynd aye are good guys and publishing . Sure enough he was right. I decided im going to write, but i was write a book about one of the most powerful people at the turn of the century, and then going into world war ii, conde nast. Of course a lot of you know all of the various magazines but they were not all there at the beginning. I would like to taket you throh what made conde nast conde nast. Fortuitous circumstances, but mostly, i apologize for the quality of some of these i photographs. There was his mother who is pictured on the right. Unfortunately i dont have her as a young woman. This is the only picture that the family still has in their possession. She was quite a lady in her own right. Her father wasdy a guy called louis and he settled in st. Louis in this lovely home here. He was married three times and had 15 children. He was extremely wealthy. He was a banker. Apparently a good guy. And it does exactly go with the term banker but go with me on this, okay . He left several Million Dollars to his children when he died. Conde as a child remembers playing in his grandfathers, his paternal grandfathers bedroom. It is currently still a Historic House on the outskirts of st. Louis mostly as a wedding venue today. But, of course,we esther, his mother, only inherited 300,000 by the time the money came down to her. Now, on his fathers side his grandfather was born in germany and immigrated to the United States as a teacher. But was always a depressive chap, very serious. He became, he converted to methodism and he became known as the father of german methodism in north america. His eldest son william was a man who wanted to be born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but the family didnt have any. So he decided he was going to go off to germany as the american consul to germany and by himself in uniform so he could hobnob with all of the royals. His father was beside himself, naturally will gymnast had felt on very, very hard he also stole money from american citizens while he was there. He left germany very quickly under a cloud and took a number of odd jobs and somehow met up with esther in new york city. Conde was the eldest son. He had another brother louis who was a great pianist, but conde grew up essentially without a father. At the age of three william decided his going back to europe to make his fortune. Actually it was more like hard work onlyy for suckers. Conde was the man of the family. He had two younger sisters as well who were what they called new women. New women were women who made their own rules, who didnt hang around with chaperones before the turn of the 20th century, who actually were extremely independent. And so was his mother. She had to be to keep the family together. But, of course, as the years went on his father stayed away until conde was 17. Things get pretty tough in the end. The only member of the family that stayed close to them was his ex ante family pictures quite a gal herself. She married into money. She loved fine things. She was very stylish in her own ways and considering this picture was taken in the 1880s, you can see that she did like to look nice. What is amazing is that she married into the Campbell Family of Procter Gamble fame. So she decided she is going to help outs poor esther to get hr sons to an American College that would set them on their way. The only problem is when she went to visit louis, apparently was very untidy. He reminded her a great deal of her brother who of course abandoned the family and, therefore, she decided she would only send conde to georgetown university. Louis never spoke to his brother again. So here is conde as he graduated. He was a very handsome young man. His best friend at college was bob colyer, and bob collier was of course the air to the colyer library. He went a year or two to europe, to england, oxford, came back and his father said im going to give you colliers weekly because its failing. Theyll have Something Like 1000 with of advertising at the time that he gave the weekly over to bob. Bob did a lot of work with condi at georgetown and he went down to st. Louis and talked conde into accepting the job with them, which he did. Considering he was the man of the film, fortunately condes father died and so is no longer a drain on the family and the two of them worked very free happily indeed for about 15 years. Bob colyer pictured left here was an innovator, and he thought about making colliers less of a generalized magazine but with condi pushing them and say look, we can really sell advertising, it we decide were going to create specialal issues. So you saw before the other picture i just showed you was really the issue for rim attends art, this was the issue that started the gibson girls going ingo terms of colliers magazin. At ladies home journal so he could have him exclusively for a period of 2 years and that was something conde learned about as well area and collier was also very into navigation. His great friend was orville and with conde. They set up the First National not national, Magazine Company that had its own Sales Network in every major city across america. Conde understood to sell magazines you understand to that the customers wanted to read the advertising. That the customers wasnt wasting money on advertising and ethical in what you sold. This was the era of quack medicines. Almost every newspaper promised to give you Something Special to cure i dont think i would want any swamp root, i dont know about you, but i think that thats pretty bad thank you this product claimed peru nut claimed it could cure almost anything. So colliers joined, with believe it or not, ladies home journal to stop quack medicine advertising. They believed it was killing americans. This is just a few other of the ads at the time. You can have your diabetes r readily cured. The then urbanepesqui, cure us thirst and we dont go into dr. Bandits products. And cw post who founded post cereal was one who was selling cereals as a medicine. Theres no here is to another year and years and years of steady nerves, clear brains and vigorous health. Well, collier spurred on by conde decided he was going to sue old cw and he did and he won. He learned a great deal with nis relationship with bob. Not only that, but bob introduced him to his first wife clarisse. I dont know if any of you rer the legal firm. Cudair brothers. They came across to america on behalf of la lafayette, George Washingtons friends and they established themselves and clarisse was part of new yorks 400. Conde was by now a wealthy man in 1902, when he married her, earning about 40,000 a year, the only person in america earning more at the time was Theodore Roosevelt as president , he earned 50,000. So she decided that she loved bob collier, but bob collier didnt love her. So conde was a good second from her point of view. He wasnt after her money. He understood that she held the whip hand as far as society was concerned. The only problem is conde understood that society was changing and women were changing and their role was changing, they wanted to become independent, they wanted the vote, they wanted their thoughts to be recognized and while certainly clarisse felt that was for her, too, she didnt really like the idea of working for a living because that was beneath a member of the 400 on the social register. Instead, after two years of marriage where she had two children, cudair the son first and then natika, the daughter, she decided she was going to go off to paris and about many a sporano in the singers in paris. Of course, she would because her Three Sisters would as well. One of them had been supporting the artist rodin as his moneymaker for the previous 20 years. Now, that isnt very good for a marriage, obviously. Conde decided in 1904 that he was going to set up on his own. Yes, bob collier was paying him more money than he was worth, there was no doubt about it, 40,000 a year in those days was close on a Million Dollars. But essentially he decided he was going to take a plunge into womens fashion and say, why womens fashion . Here he is at a national magazine, theyre starting to go into the niche markets. Conde decided that womens fashion was going to be key to the changing role of women. Up until now, womens fashion in terms of the clothing that would be put into patterns had two distinct shortcomings. The first, of course, all patterns were giveaways alongside fabrics. The second which was even more incredible was the fact that there was only one size and conde decided the new woman has many sizes. Im going to empower her. Im going to empower women without money to make their own clothing in all the sizes that they come in and that they should just discard their corsets, enjoy life and be women. Of course, he was right. And he ended up allowing ladies home journal to own label his home patterns. So Home Pattern Company was his first company. Hes still working for bob collier, due to circumstances he ended up leaving in 1906. 1907, the first time he tried to buy vogue, but he failed. He went across to europe at that point to rescue his two children from paris and his wife, she decided that she wanted to stay on and so they went across and picked up the children and the nurse maid. Clarisse decided she would come home, too. But then in 1909 he bought vogue and clarisse disappeared again for six months. Nobody in the family knows why, but she did. He bought lucky enough to buy vogue. Sadly, because its owner at that time, a guy called arthur turner, who was port of gro grollo grollors, a big club at the time, he had set it up early in 1895 and hed hired on a lady at that point as a mail clerk on the left, her name is edna chase. By the time you see her on the right, she had been the editor of vogue or the editor in chief in vogue for over 50 years. Conde kept her on, obviously. It was turners sister who had been the actual editor at the time that he bought it and she basically left due to a disagreement over some money. 1912, he decided buying two more magazines and puts them into one, something called house and garden. I think a few of you have heard of that one, too. So now he has home pattern, vogue, house and garden, were only 1912. By 1914, he decides hed really like to set up an International Magazine empire dedicated to women and womens fashion. Unfortunately theres something called world war i which began in europe in 1914, for america it began in 1917. Edna chase comes up to conde, ive got a wonderful idea, i know were cut off from french fashion and cut off from the british mens fashion because of the war, but why dont we have something called a Charity Fashion show and it will get the new york 400 involved and conde was skeptical. Clarisse doesnt like working. Can you imagine these women working on a Charity Fashion show . Of course she made it a success. She went to mrs. Fish, whose name was mamie and was able to talk her into creating this fashion show. And mamie teleed mrs. Aster. It was a done deal. The only problem, it was arranged to be the at ritz carlton in new york, the problem with the models for all of the fashions previously were tied to varied fashion house ins europe, not in america, but mrs. Aster and mrs. Fish were able to cobble together a very interesting show of new york fashion. Dont laugh. Here it is. The new york Library Found some stills of the fashion. And the models were tied to other places and fortunately conde was making clothes in different sizes because not all of them were models, were they . So theres more of these apparently at the new York City Public Library and i thought it would be really interesting to see. Anyway, this upset another gentleman called William Randolph hearst who just bought Harpers Bazaar and he sent his people out to badmouth vogue and conde nast as people who wanted to get rid of european fashion and not to import anymore and only out to support new York Clothing designers, et cetera, et cetera. What happened condes representative arrive in paris during the war with a big fat check for the seamstresses who had been put out of work. Hearst lost the first round, but he never did give up. We all know that. Come 1915, two things happened, the most important one was a lunch with a gentleman who founded the coffee house in this building, frank ronan shield. Frank was a great afficianado of modern art. He was everybodys favorite, and had miles and acres of friends throughout new york city and conde had lunch with him probably at the coffee house actually, i dont know where exactly, and he said, ive got a problem. Ive bought two magazines called dress and vanity fair, ive tried to he had debt him myself. Im a publisher not an editor. What do you think im getting wrong . Frank said, its simple, you have to make a sizzle. You have to make it a Cocktail Party every time somebody turns the page, theyre actually joining you in a conversation. Theyre actually understanding what it is that everybody in society or everybody who we read about is thinking about. And so conde decided to hire frank on as the editor for vanity fair on a handshake. He did his best deals on a handshake. They had one competitor at the time, mankin was the editor and it was the smart set where they said, one civilized reader is worth a thousand boneheads. [laughter] well, smart set especial especially eventually went out of business and they had a friendly rivalry between them. And george mason who worked at smartset ended up working at vanity fair after it closed. Conde believed in hiring the best people no matter what. It didnt matter whether they were gay, lesbian, jewish, catholic, whatever, black, it didnt matter. What mattered was talent. It didnt matter if they were known. So he hired a girl called dorothy rothchild to write captions for vogue. The one that caught franks high is brevity is the soul of lingerie. She kept dropping poems on franks test to transfer from little old vogue into vanity fair. Finally he agreed to take her on. He then also wanted to take on somebody to make the vanity fair articles more substantial, so he brought on the chap in the middle, a guy called Robert Benchley he was actually one of the funniest people ive read about and ive read his own biography and its absolutely hysterical, but he was a harvard graduate, he had been the editor of the Harvard Lampoon and he got the job because he was going to get all very serious. I opened the book with one of the incidents that happened while they were working there. Benchley went on to win an oscar for a short that was produced by mgm called how to sleep. And it is hysterically funny if you can ever get a hold of it. Dorothy, of course, would eventually go on to other things, but the third person in the picture is a gentleman called Robert Sherwood who is about 6 foot 8. Fresh out of the army in 1919 and came to work. He said he was a very good writer. Frank wanted to believ