Jane Cunningham Croly

Jane Cunningham Croly (born Dec. 19, 1829, Market Harborough, Leicestershire, Eng.—died Dec. 23, 1901, New York, N.Y., U.S.) was an English-born American journalist and clubwoman whose popular writings and socially conscious advocacy reflected, in different spheres, her belief that equal rights and economic independence for women would allow them to become fully responsible, productive citizens.

Jane Cunningham moved to the United States with her family in 1841. She grew up in New York state and taught school for a time. From an early age she was interested in writing, and in 1855 she went to New York City to seek a career. In short order she had placed a regular column, “Parlor and Side-walk Gossip,” with the Sunday Times and Noah’s Weekly Messenger. By 1857 she was sending the column to the Baltimore (Maryland) American, the Richmond (Virginia) Enquirer, the Louisville (Kentucky) Journal, and the New Orleans (Louisiana) Delta as well, creating what was probably the first syndicated women’s column, which she signed in the fashion of the day with a pen name, Jennie June.

In 1856 she married David G. Croly, also a journalist. In 1859 they moved to Rockford, Illinois, where he founded the short-lived Daily News, and in 1860 they returned to New York City, where they both joined the staff of the new World. From 1862 to 1872 she managed the World’s women’s department. During much of that time she also contributed a women’s column, along with pieces of dramatic and literary criticism, to the Weekly Times. She was the chief staff writer for Mme Demorest’s Mirror of Fashions from its founding in 1860 by Ellen L.C. Demorest, and she retained that post, through the magazine’s growth into Demorest’s Illustrated Monthly Magazine in 1864, until 1887. At various times she also was associated with or contributed to Godey’s Lady’s Book (in 1887–89), Woman’s Cycle (which she founded in 1889 and which merged with the Home-Maker the next year and was named the New Cycle in 1893–96), the Graphic Daily Times, the New York Times, the Messenger, and other periodicals, and she continued as New York correspondent for a number of newspapers in other cities. In 1866 she published Jennie June’s American Cookery Book.

Croly’s columns on fashion advocated moderate dress reform while gently satirizing the more radical alternatives, and her commentaries on other topics of interest to women were similarly clearheaded and sensible. Her dedication to equal rights for women was predicated on the assumption of responsibility for self-betterment and productive effort by women. She believed that suffrage and related reforms would result naturally from women’s assuming their properly equal place in the economic system. Three collections of her columns were published in book form: Jennie Juneiana: Talks on Women’s Topics (1869), For Better or Worse: A Book for Some Men and All Women (1875), and Thrown on Her Own Resources (1891).

In 1868 Croly was indignant when the New York Press Club sponsored a men-only reception for Charles Dickens, and her response was to found in March 1868 Sorosis, a club for women. She prevailed upon her friend Alice Cary to serve as first president of Sorosis; she herself was president in 1870 and again from 1875 to 1886. In 1889 she called a national convention of women’s clubs at which, in March of that year, the General Federation of Women’s Clubs was organized with Charlotte E. Brown as president. In the same year, Croly founded and became first president of the Women’s Press Club of New York. In 1892 she was named professor of journalism and literature at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey. Her last major work was the writing of her History of the Woman’s Club Movement in America (1898).

The third of her five children, Herbert David Croly (1869–1930), became famous as a political thinker and founding editor of The New Republic.