Elizabeth Jordan

Elizabeth Garver Jordan (May 9, 1865 – February 24, 1947) was an American journalist, author, editor, and suffragist, now remembered primarily for having edited the first two novels of Sinclair Lewis, and for her relationship with Henry James, especially for recruiting him to participate in the round-robin novel The Whole Family. She was editor of Harper's Bazaar from 1900 to 1913.

Life and work

Jordan was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to William Frank Jordan and Margaretta Garver, and was the first of their two daughters.

In 1890, Jordan moved to New York City and began working at Joseph Pulitzer's newspaper, the New York World. Her first big break was an interview with the normally reticent First Lady Caroline Scott Harrison, wife of President Benjamin Harrison. At the World she became known for her regular Sunday human interest feature "True Stories of the News". Major stories she covered included the trial of Carlyle Harris for the murder of his wife Helen Potts and the trial of accused ax murderer Lizzie Borden. She also wrote a series of articles about conditions in New York City tenements that was later published as the book The Submerged Tenth. During this period, she organized a collaborative novel called The Whole Family about the Talberts, a middle-class family from New England. Each of her co-authors, some of them novelists of some renown like Henry James and William Dean Howells, penned one of the twelve chapters. The novel was serialized in Harper's from 1907 to 1908.

After the sale of Harper's to William Randolph Hearst, she remained at Harper and Brothers as literary advisor until 1918. In that capacity, she edited the first novel by Sinclair Lewis, Our Mr. Wrenn (1914). Case of Lizzie Borden and Other Writings: Tales of a Newspaper Woman, a collection of Jordan's essays and stories, Penguin Press (2024)