Editing Dorothy Parker (section)

== Early life and education ==
Also known as Dot or Dottie,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hellman |first=Lillian |title=Pentimento |year=1973 |publisher=Quartet Books |publication-date=1976 |isbn=0 7043 3105 5 |location=London |pages=103–105 |language=English}}</ref> Parker was born Dorothy Rothschild in 1893 to Jacob Henry Rothschild and his wife Eliza Annie (née Marston){{sfn|Meade|1987}} (1851–1898) at 732 Ocean Avenue in [[Long Branch, New Jersey|Long Branch]], [[New Jersey]].<ref name="NYT obit">{{cite news |url=http://dorothyparker.com/gallery/new-york-times-obituary |title=Dorothy Parker, 73, Literary Wit, Dies |newspaper=The New York Times |date=June 8, 1967 |first=Alden |last=Whitman}}</ref> Parker wrote in her essay "My Home Town" that her parents returned from their summer beach cottage there to their [[Manhattan]] apartment shortly after [[Labor Day]] (September 4) so that she could be called a true New Yorker.

Parker's mother was of [[Scottish people|Scottish]] descent. Her father was the son of Sampson Jacob Rothschild (1818–1899) and Mary Greissman (b. 1824), both [[Prussia]]n-born [[Jews]]. Sampson Jacob Rothschild was a merchant who immigrated to the United States around 1846, settling in [[Monroe County, Alabama]]. Dorothy's father was one of five known siblings: Simon (1854–1908); Samuel (b. 1857); Hannah (1860–1911), later Mrs. William Henry Theobald; and Martin, born in [[Manhattan]] on December 12, 1865, who perished in the sinking of the ''[[Titanic]]'' in 1912.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-victim/martin-rothschild.html|title=Martin Rothschild : Titanic Victim|website=Encyclopedia Titanica}}</ref>

Her mother died in Manhattan in July 1898, a month before Parker's fifth birthday.{{sfn|Meade|1987|p=12}} Her father remarried in 1900 to Eleanor Frances Lewis (1851–1903), a Protestant.{{sfn|Meade|1987|p=13}}

Author Dorothy Herrmann claimed that Parker hated her father, who allegedly physically abused her, and her stepmother, whom she refused to call "mother", "stepmother", or "Eleanor", instead referring to her as "the housekeeper".<ref>{{cite book |last=Herrmann |first=Dorothy |title=With Malice Toward All: The Quips, Lives and Loves of Some Celebrated 20th-Century American Wits |publisher=G. P. Putnam's Sons |year=1982 |location=New York |page=78 |isbn=0-399-12710-0}}</ref> However, her biographer [[Marion Meade]] refers to this account as "largely false", stating that the atmosphere in which Parker grew up was indulgent, affectionate, supportive and generous.{{sfn|Meade|1987}}

Parker was raised on the [[Upper West Side]] and attended a [[Roman Catholic]] elementary school at the Convent of the Blessed Sacrament on West [[79th Street (Manhattan)|79th Street]] with her sister, Helen,{{sfn|Meade|1987}} and classmate [[Mercedes de Acosta]]. Parker once joked that she was asked to leave following her characterization of the [[Immaculate Conception]] as "[[spontaneous combustion]]".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Chambers |first=Dianne |contribution=Parker, Dorothy |year=1995 |title=The Oxford Companion to Women's Writing in the United States | editor-last = Wagner-Martin | editor-first = Linda |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] | contribution-url = http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t196.e0604}}</ref>

Her stepmother died in 1903, when Parker was nine.{{sfn|Meade|1987|p=16}} Parker later attended [[Miss Dana's School for Young Ladies|Miss Dana's School]], a [[finishing school]] in [[Morristown, New Jersey]].{{sfn|Meade|1987|p=27}} She graduated in 1911, at the age of 18, according to Kinney, just before the school closed,<ref>{{cite book |last=Kinney |first=Arthur F. |title=Dorothy Parker |url=https://archive.org/details/dorothyparker0000kinn |url-access=registration |publisher=Twayne Publishers |year=1978 |location=Boston |pages=[https://archive.org/details/dorothyparker0000kinn/page/26 26–27]|isbn=978-0-8057-7241-8 }}</ref> although Rhonda Pettit<ref name="auto">{{Cite web|url=http://www.english.illinois.edu/MAPS/poets/m_r/parker/bio.htm|title=Modern American Poetry|access-date=May 6, 2019|archive-date=March 27, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190327021024/http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/parker/bio.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> and Marion Meade{{sfn|Meade|1987}} state she never graduated from high school. Following her father's death in 1913, she played piano at a dancing school to earn a living<ref>{{cite book |last=Silverstein |first=Stuart Y. |title=Not Much Fun: The Lost Poems of Dorothy Parker |publisher=Scribner |year=1996 |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/notmuchfunlostpo0000park/page/13 13] |isbn=0-7432-1148-0 |url=https://archive.org/details/notmuchfunlostpo0000park/page/13 }}</ref> while she worked on her poetry.

She sold her first poem to ''[[Vanity Fair (magazine)|Vanity Fair]]'' magazine in 1914 and some months later was hired as an editorial assistant for ''[[Vogue (magazine)|Vogue]]'', another [[Condé Nast Publications|Condé Nast]] magazine. She moved to ''Vanity Fair'' as a staff writer after two years at ''Vogue''.{{sfn|Silverstein|1996|p=13}}

In 1917, she met a [[Wall Street]] [[stockbroker]], Edwin Pond Parker II{{sfn|Herrmann|1982|p=78}}
(1893–1933)<ref>{{cite news |title=Edwin P. Parker 2d |newspaper=The New York Times |agency=Associated Press |date=January 8, 1933 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1933/01/08/archives/edwin-p-parker-2d.html |access-date=February 28, 2013}}</ref> and they married before he left to serve in [[World War I]] with the [[U.S. Army]] 4th Division.<ref>{{Cite news | title=Disagreement on cause of man's death | url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/?clipping_id=20026728 | via=Newspapers.com | newspaper=Hartford Courant | location=Hartford, Connecticut | date=January 8, 1933 | page=6}}</ref>