Fanny Butcher

Fanny Butcher (née Fanny Amanda Butcher; September 13, 1888 – May 11, 1987)^[1] was a long time writer and literary critic for the Chicago Tribune newspaper.^[2]

Personal life

Butcher was born on September 13, 1888, in Fredonia, Kansas, to Levi Oliver Butcher (1862–1929) and Hattie May Young (maiden; 1864–1947). Her family moved to Chicago when she was 3-years-old^[3] and she later attended Lewis Institute (now Illinois Institute of Technology) from 1906 to 1908. She graduated from the University of Chicago in 1910. In 1935 Butcher married Richard Drummond Bokum, Jr. (1885–1963), an advertising executive. They had no children.^[1]

Career

She began at the Tribune in 1913 and held various positions including society editor, club editor, crime reporter, fashion editor, women's assistant editor, special correspondent, music assistant critic. In 1923 she became the literary editor and held the position for 40 years until her retirement in 1963.

A cartoon by Helen E. Hokinson of The New Yorker on the back cover of Fanny Butcher's autobiography, Many Lives – One Love, depicts a bookstore clerk in the biography section showing a book to an elderly lady, saying:

Hugh Walpole liked it, Fanny Butcher liked it, Wm. Rose Benét liked it, and Mrs. Roosevelt liked it, but it isn't very good.

— © 1940; © renewed 1968; The New Yorker^[4][1][5]

From this, one might infer that Fanny Butcher was a household name among bookish Americans in 1940. In 2016, Butcher was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.^[6]

See also

• Arthur Meeker, Jr.

Resources

1. New York Times, The (May 17, 1987). "Fanny Butcher Dead; Literary Critic Was 99". The New York Times (Chicago, May 16 – AP). Vol. 136, no. whole no. 47142 (Late ed.). p. 40. Retrieved March 9, 2008 – via TimesMachine. (permalink)
2. Cornell, Charles R. (ed.). "Butcher, Fanny". Biography Index – a cumulative index to biographical material in books and magazines (September 1986–August 1988). Vol. 15. Montalvo, Rene J. (indexer). New York: H. W. Wilson Company. LCCN 47-6532; ISSN 0006-3053; OCLC 001536408 (all editions); OCLC 30326307, 956660503 (Vol. 15 only).
3. Chicago Tribune; Heise, Kenan (May 17, 1987). "Fanny Butcher Knew The Giants Of Literature". Obituaries. Vol. 140, no. 137 (Final ed.). p. 7 (section 2). Retrieved October 19, 2015.
4. The Popular Educator Library, Volume two, National Educational Alliance, Inc, copyright 1938, 799.
5. Hokinson, Helen Elna (1893–1949) (November 2, 1940). "Lewis Gannett liked it, Harry Hansen liked it ... ". The New Yorker (cartoon). Vol. 16, no. 38, whole no. 820. p. 84.
6. "Fanny Butcher". Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. 2016. Retrieved 2017-10-08.

Bibliography

• Butcher, Fanny (1972). Many Lives – One Love (autobiography). A Cass Canfield Book (1st ed.). Harper & Row. Retrieved August 11, 2021 – via Internet Archive. LCCN 70-156511; ISBN 0-0601-0402-3, 978-0-0601-0402-3; OCLC 731181946 (all editions).

External links

• Fanny Butcher Papers at the Newberry Library
• Hervey Allen Papers, 1831-1965, SC.1952.01, Special Collections Department, University of Pittsburgh
• Bookwomen building Chicago – the Fanny Butcher story Adele Hast, The Caxtonian Web Edition, May 2002. The Caxton Club of Chicago