Knopf, Alfred A. (1892-1984). President of New York publisher Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Knopf received his BA from Columbia University in New York City in 1912 and founded Alfred Knopf, Inc., in 1915 with his future wife Blanche Wolf. They married in 1916, and their son Alfred “Pat” Knopf was born in 1918. Cather chose him as her publisher beginning with Youth and the Bright Medusa (1920) and One of Ours (1922), partly because she was dissatisfied with the promotion of her books by Houghton Mifflin but also because she recognized the high quality of Knopf's books, as well as what she regarded as his intelligent advertising. Knopf was noted for publishing the work of leading European and South American writers in translation, as well as original works. Knopf and Cather’s extensive correspondence testifies to their mutual professional respect and to what also became an important personal friendship.

Chamberlain, John Rensselaer (1903-1995). American journalist, critic, and author. Born in New Haven, CT, to Robert Chamberlain and Emily Davis, John Chamberlain worked as a copywriter for the Thomas F. Logan advertising agency after graduating from Yale University in 1925. He began working as a New York Times reporter in 1926 and writing its daily book review in the 1930s, including a 1932 review of Cather’s Shadows on the Rock (1931). Chamberlain also wrote and did editorial work for Fortune, Life, the Freeman, Barron’s Financial Weekly, the Wall Street Journal, and the National Review. He wrote eight books including: Farewell to Reform (1932), The Roots of Capitalism (1959), and The Turnabout Years (1992).