Frank Crowninshield

Francis Welch Crowninshield (June 24, 1872 – December 28, 1947), better known as Frank or Crownie (informal), was an American journalist and art and theatre critic best known for developing and editing the magazine Vanity Fair for 21 years, making it a pre-eminent literary journal.

Crowninshield was born June 24, 1872 in Paris, France, to the Americans Frederic Crowninshield (1845–1918) and his wife, the former Helen Suzette Fairbanks, what he called "poor but good" members of the well-heeled Boston Brahmin Crowninshield family. His father, a man of "independent means", was a poet and a respected painter of landscape and murals. He served for two years as director of the American Academy in Rome.

As an adult Frank Crowninshield lived in New York City, where he was active in the high-class life and socialized on a regular basis with the elites of the period, as well as rising artists and writers. He was a member of the exclusive Knickerbocker Club and Union Club.

He was a member of the Dutch Treat Club from 1937-1947 and served on the Board of governors as a Vice President. An award given by the club in his name was awarded to Arthur Rubinstein in 1954.

Crowninshield never married.

In 1914, Crowninshield – who was considered "the most cultivated, elegant, and endearing man in publishing, if not Manhattan" – was hired by his friend Condé Nast to become editor of the new Vanity Fair. Crowninshield immediately dropped the magazine's fashion elements and helped turn the periodical into the preeminent literary voice of sophisticated American society, a position it held until 1935. As young adults, Nast and Crowninshield were roommates.

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