Janet Flanner’s “High-Class Gossip” and American Nationalism Between the Wars

In this article I trace the parallel emergence of the New Yorker with the new American national consciousness that would come to dominate the twentieth century. I analyze Janet Flanner’s Paris Letters as gossip, comparing them with Walter Winchell’s famous columns, and demonstrate how their tone of shared understanding—written as if from one insider to another—worked to solidify Americans’ feelings of cultural, economic, and political superiority over the European continent. I argue that Flanner’s ironic, sharp, and witty observations juxtaposing French and American culture helped set the tone for Franco-American relations in the years between the wars.