Jeannette Leonard Gilder

Jeannette Leonard Gilder was an American journalist, editor, and critic — one of the most influential women in late-19th-century literary publishing. The sister of Richard Watson Gilder, William Henry Gilder Jr., Joseph Benson Gilder, John Francis Gilder, and Robert Fletcher Gilder, she came of age in a household defined by faith, learning, and public engagement.

She began her writing career as a New York correspondent for the Philadelphia Inquirer and contributed to the Newark Morning Register and Scribner's Monthly. In 1881 she co-founded The Critic, a weekly literary magazine, with her brother Joseph Benson Gilder. Under their editorship The Critic became a central forum for American letters, publishing reviews, essays, and commentary by leading writers of the era.

Jeannette was a tireless advocate for reading, for theatre, and for women in journalism. She wrote popular columns under her own name and under pseudonyms, edited essay collections, and authored a memoir, The Autobiography of a Tomboy (1900), and its sequel The Tomboy at Work. She remained a regular presence in the Gilder family circle that gathered at Four Brooks Farm and at "The Studio" in New York, where her editorial reach intersected with the artistic and reform networks of her brother Richard and sister-in-law Helena.

She died in New York City in 1916, the same year as her sister-in-law Helena de Kay Gilder, closing a remarkable generation of Gilder siblings whose work shaped American journalism, exploration, music, and the visual arts.