Fenwick, Millicent, 1910-1992

Millicent Vernon Hammond Fenwick (February 25, 1910 – September 16, 1992) was an American fashion editor, politician and diplomat. A four-term Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from New Jersey, she entered politics late in life and was renowned for her energy and colorful enthusiasm. She was regarded as a moderate and progressive within her party and was outspoken in favor of civil rights and the women's movement.

Born Millicent Vernon Hammond, she was raised in comfortable circumstances in Bernardsville, New Jersey, attending the exclusive Nightingale-Bamford School in nearby Manhattan and Foxcroft School in rural Virginias before attending college at Columbia University and the New School for Social Research. She met Hugh McLeod Fenwick in 1931, marrying him the following yerar after his divorce from his first wife. The Fenwicks separated six years later, and they eventually divorced in 1945. Millicent Fenwick refused financial assistance from her family and, instead, found work to support her children. She modeled briefly for Harper’s Bazaar and then took a job as associate editor on the staff of Condé Nast’s Vogue magazine. From 1938 to 1952, Fenwick worked on several Nast publications. In 1948 she wrote Vogue’s Book of Etiquette, a 600-page “treatise in proper behavior.” It sold more than a million copies. Fenwick left Vogue in 1952 and inherited a fortune when her father passed away a few years later.

...