Lane, Gertrude Battles (1874-1941). American magazine editor. Born in Saco, ME, Lane moved to Boston, MA, after graduating high school. She taught, took a secretarial course, and worked as a secretary before becoming an assistant editor at Cyclopedia Publishing. In 1902, she left for New York City, where in 1903 she became household editor of the Woman’s Home Companion, which had recently been acquired by the Crowell Publishing Company. She became managing editor in 1909 and editor in chief in 1912. Under her editorship the magazine’s circulation increased dramatically, causing chairman of the Crowell board, Joseph Palmer Knapp, to call her “the best man in the business.” She was made a vice president of Crowell in 1929. Cather’s acquaintance with Lane apparently dated to Cather’s years at McClure’s Magazine. She admired Lane personally and as an editor even as she expressed reservations about the quality of the Woman’s Home Companion. Lane paid well for fiction, however, and Cather’s “Uncle Valentine” (1925), “Neighbor Rosicky” (1930), “Two Friends” (1931) and Lucy Gayheart (1935) appeared in the Woman’s Home Companion; these transactions are not well documented in extant letters, in part because Lane and Cather transacted business on the phone. In the fall of 1936, Lane expressed a willingness to publish Cather’s story “The Old Beauty” even though she was not enthusiastic about it, but Cather withdrew it from consideration (it finally appeared in The Old Beauty and Others [1948]). By 1939, Lane’s salary was $52,000, reputed to be the highest earned income of any woman. She died in New York City.