Kirchwey, Freda (1893-1976). American journalist, editor, and publisher. Born in Lake Placid, NY, to George Kirchwey, a law professor, and Dora Wendell Kirchwey, a high school English teacher, Freda Kirchwey attended the Horace Mann School and Barnard College. An advocate for women’s suffrage, she retained her surname when she married Evans Clark in 1915 and was a member of the radical New York Women’s Peace Party during World War I. She held several journalistic positions, including as editorial assistant at Every Week under Edith Lewis as managing editor in the magazine’s final months in 1918, before joining the staff of the Nation in August 1918. In 1922 she became managing editor and may have commissioned Cather to write “Nebraska: The End of the First Cycle” (1923) for the magazine’s “Portraits of the States” series. Kirchwey became executive editor of the Nation’s board of editors in 1933 and by 1937 was owner, editor, and publisher. In the late 1930s the Nation was one of the few American magazines to report the atrocities committed against the Jews in Germany under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party, and Kirchwey moved the magazine away from its earlier pacifist stance to advocate for war. In declining Kirchwey’s 1938 invitation to contribute to the Nation’s “Living Philosophies” series, Cather praised her political courage.