Kate Simon (December 5, 1912 – February 4, 1990) was a Polish-born American writer.

Life and career

She was born Kaila Grobsmith in

Warsaw, Poland Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at 1.86 million residents within a grea ...

to Jewish parents, David, a shoe designer, and Lonia (née Babicz), a corsetiere. Her family brought her to the United States when she was four, where they rejoined her father. Kate was raised in the

Bronx, New York The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...

, and attended

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City, United States. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools ...

where she earned a B.A. Her writing career began as a book reviewer for ''

The New Republic ''The New Republic'' (often abbreviated as ''TNR'') is an American magazine focused on domestic politics, news, culture, and the arts from a left-wing perspective. It publishes ten print magazines a year and a daily online platform. ''The New Y ...

'' and ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is a progressive American monthly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper ...

'' magazines. She worked for Book-of-the-Month Club, ''

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...

'', and as a free-lance editor for

Alfred A. Knopf Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. () is an American publishing house that was founded by Blanche Knopf and Alfred A. Knopf Sr. in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers ...

. Against her father's wishes, she switched from vocational school to James Monroe High School. On a vacation at a Yiddish leftist encampment in the Catskills with her mother and siblings, she met the Bergsons, who served as surrogate parents for her and for whose children she served as nanny. She became an English major at

.Profile
jwa.org. Accessed October 12, 2023. Simon became a well-known travel writer. Several of her guides became best sellers. Her autobiography was written in three parts. The first, ''Bronx Primitive: Portraits in a Childhood'' (1982) was one of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'''s twelve best books of 1982 and was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award. This was followed by ''Wider World: Portraits in an Adolescence'' (1986) that told of her teen age period and college experiences. The third volume, ''Etchings in an Hourglass'' (1990) is about her adulthood. Her work, ''Fifth Avenue: A Very Social Story'' (1978), is a social history of Manhattan. ''A Renaissance Tapestry: The Gonzaga of Mantua'' (1988) tells the story of the Renaissance through the history of the Gonzaga family. She was married twice. Her first husband (possibly common-law) was Dr. Stanley "Steve" Goldman, a deaf endocrinologist whom she had met at Hunter College. Dr. Goldman (died 1942), as well as Simon's only child, Alexandra "Lexie" (died 1954, aged 20), and her younger sister, Sylvia, all died of brain tumors. She was divorced from her second husband, Robert Simon, in 1960 after 12-13 years of marriage. Kate Simon was diagnosed with stomach cancer in 1989, and died a year later, aged 77, at her

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

home.Biography
library.hunter.cuny.edu. Accessed October 12, 2023.

Bibliography

* ''Etchings in an Hourglass'' (1990) * ''A Renaissance tapestry: the Gonzaga of Mantua'' (1989) * ''Mexico, places and pleasures'' (1988) * ''A wider world: portraits in an adolescence'' (1986) * ''Italy: the places in between'' (1984) * ''Bronx primitive: portraits in a childhood'' (1982) * ''Fifth Avenue: a very social history'' (1979) * ''England's green and pleasant land'' (1974) * ''Rome: places and pleasures'' (1972) * ''Paris places and pleasures: an uncommon guidebook'' (1971) * ''New York places & pleasures: an uncommon guidebook'' (1971) * ''London places & pleasures: an uncommon guidebook'' (1968) * ''Mexico: places & pleasures'' (1963)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Simon, Kate 1912 births 1990 deaths Writers from the Bronx Polish emigrants to the United States American travel writers Hunter College alumni The New Republic people Deaths from stomach cancer in New York (state) American women travel writers 20th-century American women writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers