Joan Bingham, Catalyst in a Publishing Merger, Dies at 85

With Ms. Bingham championing her work, Ms. Ryan became prominent enough that, in 2008, she was named poet laureate of the United States. Her 2010 collection, “The Best of It: New and Selected Poems,” won the Pulitzer Prize.

Joan Williamson Stevens was born on March 5, 1935, in Steubenville, Ohio. Her father, Edward, was chief executive of United Oil Company in Pittsburgh, and her mother, Helen Williamson Stevens, was a homemaker.

Joan Stevens grew up in Sewickley, Pa., a suburb of Pittsburgh, and graduated from Miss Porter’s School in Connecticut in 1953. Four years later she graduated from Connecticut College with a degree in art history.

She was studying at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco when, during a summer session at Harvard University, she met Mr. Bingham. They married in 1960.

Mr. Bingham enjoyed outdoor activities. In July 1966 the family was vacationing in Nantucket, Mass., and Mr. Bingham hoped to do some surfing. Fitting the surfboard into their rented car required rolling down the windows and laying the board crosswise in the vehicle, the ends protruding out the windows on either side. With Mr. Bingham driving, one end of the board clipped a park car, causing it to pivot, whipping the board into Mr. Bingham’s neck and killing him.

Ms. Bingham remained a director of the family company (which sold its media holdings in 1986) but settled in Manhattan and Washington. Once she entered the book-publishing field, her homes in both cities, with their walls of bookcases, became frequent stops for those in the business.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/02/books/joan-bingham-dies.html