Condé Montrose Nast
Encyclopedia
Condé Nast Publications
Condé Nast, a division of Advance Publications, is a magazine publisher. In the U.S., it produces 18 consumer magazines, including Architectural Digest, Bon Appétit, GQ, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Vogue, as well as four business-to-business publications, 27 websites, and more than 50 apps...
, a leading American magazine publisher known for publications such as Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (American magazine 1913-1936)
Vanity Fair was an American society magazine published from 1913-1936. It was highly successful until the Great Depression led to it becoming unprofitable, and it was merged into Vogue magazine in 1936.-History:...
, Vogue
Vogue (magazine)
Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 18 national and one regional edition by Condé Nast.-History:In 1892 Arthur Turnure founded Vogue as a weekly publication in the United States. When he died in 1909, Condé Montrose Nast picked up the magazine and slowly began...
and The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
.
Background
Named for his uncle Condé L. Benoist, Condé Montrose Nast was born in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to a family of Midwestern
Midwestern United States
The Midwestern United States is one of the four U.S. geographic regions defined by the United States Census Bureau, providing an official definition of the American Midwest....
origin. His father, William F. Nast
William F. Nast
William Frederick Nast was an American diplomat and entrepreneur. He was the third president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway....
(son of the German-born Methodist leader William Nast
William Nast (Methodism)
William Nast was a German-born religious leader and editor. He founded the German Methodist Church of the United States.-Biography:...
) was an unsuccessful broker and inventor who had also served as U.S. attaché in Berlin. His mother, the former Esther A. Benoist, was a daughter of pioneering St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
banker Louis Auguste Benoist
Louis Auguste Benoist
Louis Auguste Benoist was a pioneer banker and financier.Born August 13, 1803, in St. Louis, Missouri, then a French settlement under Spanish rule and soon to become a possession of the United States under the Louisiana Purchase...
and a descendant of a prominent French family that emigrated to Canada and thence to Missouri.
He had three siblings: Louis, Ethel, and Estelle.
Nast's aunt financed his studies at Georgetown University
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
, where he graduated in 1894. He went on to earn a law degree from Washington University in St. Louis
Washington University in St. Louis
Washington University in St. Louis is a private research university located in suburban St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1853, and named for George Washington, the university has students and faculty from all fifty U.S. states and more than 110 nations...
in 1897.
Career
Nast did not take well to law, and upon graduation he got a job working for a former classmate as advertising manager for Collier's WeeklyCollier's Weekly
Collier's Weekly was an American magazine founded by Peter Fenelon Collier and published from 1888 to 1957. With the passage of decades, the title was shortened to Collier's....
(1898–1907). Over the course of a decade he increased the advertising revenue 100-fold. He published books and Lippincott's Monthly Magazine
Lippincott's Monthly Magazine
Lippincott's Monthly Magazine was a 19th century literary magazine published in Philadelphia from 1868 to 1915, when it relocated to New York to become McBride's Magazine. It merged with Scribner's Magazine in 1916....
with Robert M. McBride
Robert M. McBride
Robert Medill McBride was the publisher of James Branch Cabell and the later books of Frank Buck .-Early years:...
(McBride, Nast & Co.). After leaving Collier's Nast bought Vogue
Vogue (magazine)
Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 18 national and one regional edition by Condé Nast.-History:In 1892 Arthur Turnure founded Vogue as a weekly publication in the United States. When he died in 1909, Condé Montrose Nast picked up the magazine and slowly began...
, then a small New York society magazine, transforming it into America's premier fashion magazine.
He then turned Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (American magazine 1913-1936)
Vanity Fair was an American society magazine published from 1913-1936. It was highly successful until the Great Depression led to it becoming unprofitable, and it was merged into Vogue magazine in 1936.-History:...
into a sophisticated general interest publication, with the help of his friend Frank Crowninshield
Frank Crowninshield
Francis Welch Crowninshield , better known as Frank or Crownie , 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.-Personal life:Crowninshield was born June 24, 1872 in Paris,...
, who was editor and a major influence for more than 20 years. It published many new and high quality writers, as well as displaying reproductions of modern art.
Nast eventually owned a stable of magazines that included House & Garden
House & Garden (magazine)
House & Garden was an American shelter magazine published by Condé Nast Publications that focused on interior design, entertaining, and gardening....
, British, French, and Argentine editions of Vogue, Jardins des Modes, and Glamour
Glamour (magazine)
Glamour is a women's magazine published by Condé Nast Publications. Founded in 1939 in the United States, it was originally called Glamour of Hollywood....
(the last magazine added to the group while he was alive). While other publishers simply focused on increasing the number of magazines in circulation, Nast targeted groups of readers by income level or common interest. Among his staffers were Edna Woolman Chase
Edna Woolman Chase
Edna Woolman Chase was editor in chief of Vogue magazine from 1914-1952. During her years at Vogue, Chase made many contributions to the magazine. She saw Vogue through prosperous times and hard times of war and losing colleagues. Chase was born and raised in Asbury Park, New Jersey, but moved to...
, who served as the editor in chief of Vogue; and Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker was an American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist, best known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th century urban foibles....
and Robert Benchley
Robert Benchley
Robert Charles Benchley was an American humorist best known for his work as a newspaper columnist and film actor...
.
Nearly ruined in the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
as many others were, Nast spent his last years struggling to regain his early prosperity.
Marriages
- (Jeanne) Clarisse Coudert, a Coudert BrothersCoudert BrothersCoudert Brothers LLP was a New York-based law firm with a strong international outlook that practiced from 1853 until its dissolution in 2006.-History:...
law-firm heiress who became a set and costume designer. Married in 1902, separated in 1919, and divorced in 1925, they had two children, Charles Coudert Nast and Natica Nast, an artist (who married Gerald F. WarburgWarburg familyThe Warburg family is a financial dynasty of German Jewish origin, noted for their accomplishments in physics, classical music, art history, pharmacology, physiology, finance, private equity and philanthropy. They are believed to be descended from the Venetian Jewish del Banco family, in the early...
, a banking heir and professional cellist and conductor). After her divorce from Nast, Clarisse Coudert Nast married J. V. Onativia. (See photographs of Clarisse Nast on Wikimedia Commons.) - Leslie Foster, whom he married in 1928; a granddaughter of Gov. George White Baxter of Tennessee, the bride was 20, the groom was 55. Divorced circa 1932, they had one child, a daughter, Leslie (who married firstly, Peter George Grenfell, 2nd Baron St. Just, and secondly, Lord Bonham Carter): after their divorce, Leslie Foster Nast married Lt. Col. Sir Reginald Benson.
Between 1932 and 1936, Nast's companion was the Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (American magazine 1913-1936)
Vanity Fair was an American society magazine published from 1913-1936. It was highly successful until the Great Depression led to it becoming unprofitable, and it was merged into Vogue magazine in 1936.-History:...
writer Helen Brown Norden Lawrenson, author of The Hussy's Handbook (1942), Latins are Still Lousy Lovers (1968), and Stranger at the Party (1975).
Death
Gate of Heaven Cemetery
The Gate of Heaven Cemetery, approximately 25 miles north of New York City, was established in 1917 at 10 West Stevens Ave. in Hawthorne, Westchester County, New York, United States, as a Roman Catholic burial site...
in Hawthorne, New York
Hawthorne, New York
Hawthorne is an unincorporated hamlet and census-designated place located in the town of Mount Pleasant in Westchester County, New York. The population was 4,586 at the 2010 census.-History:...
. His grave is located in Section 25 of the cemetery, near Babe Ruth
Babe Ruth
George Herman Ruth, Jr. , best known as "Babe" Ruth and nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Sultan of Swat", was an American Major League baseball player from 1914–1935...
and Billy Martin
Billy Martin
Alfred Manuel "Billy" Martin, Jr. was an American Major League Baseball second baseman and manager. He is best known as the manager of the New York Yankees, a position he held five different times...
.