Elizabeth Janeway

Who was Elizabeth Janeway?

Elizabeth Janeway was an American author and critic.

Born Elizabeth Ames Hall in Brooklyn, New York, her naval architect father and homemaker mother fell on hard times during the Depression, leading her to end her Swarthmore College education and help support the family by creating bargain basement sale slogans.

Never a supporter of the Communist Party or even a socialist, she did breathe the progressive air of 1930s New York City; she always laughed as she described how she and a Barnard friend met their physical education requirement by improvising a tap-dance version of The Internationale. Intent on becoming an author, Janeway took the same creative writing class again and again to help hone her craft. While working on her first novel, The Walsh Girls, she met and married Eliot Janeway, a much-quoted economist who was to enjoy some influence with presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson. Elizabeth described Eliot as "the most intelligent man I had ever met."

The Janeways mingled with United States Supreme Court justices and many other luminaries of the day.