Lois Long

Who was Lois Long?

Lois Bancroft Long was a popular American writer for The New Yorker during the 1920s. She was known under the pseudonym Lipstick and as the epitome of a flapper.

She was born on December 15, 1901, in Stamford, Connecticut, the oldest of three children to William J. and Frances Bancroft Long. She graduated from Vassar College. Long had worked at Vogue and Vanity Fair before finding fame at The New Yorker. Harold Ross hired her to write a column on New York nightlife. Under the name of Lipstick, Lois Long chronicled her nightly escapades of drinking, dining, and dancing. She wrote of the decadence of the decade with an air of aplomb, wit, and satire, becoming quite a celebrity. Because her readers did not know who she was, Long often jested in her columns about being a "short squat maiden of forty" or a "kindly, old, bearded gentleman." However, in the announcement of her marriage to The New Yorker cartoonist Peter Arno, she revealed her true identity.

To summarize her lifestyle in her own words: "Tomorrow we may die, so let's get drunk and make love."

She remained with The New Yorker as a columnist until her husband's death in 1968. She died in 1974.