Dorothy Parker
Long Branch, Monmouth County, New Jersey
Marker Inscription
Dorothy Parker birthplace Site of the summer cottage of Dorothy Parker. Short story writer, critic and poet. Member of the Algonquin Round Table. Champion for social justice. Born here in West End, New Jersey August 22, 1893 is designated a Literary Landmark by Friends of Libraries U.S.A.
Erected by Dorothy Parker Society
The Story
The writer Dorothy Parker was born in 1893 at her family's summer cottage in the West End of Long Branch, on the New Jersey shore. She became one of the sharpest voices of the 1920s as a poet, critic, and founding wit of Manhattan's Algonquin Round Table, and later a committed campaigner for civil rights and social justice. Friends of Libraries U.S.A. designated the birthplace a Literary Landmark.
Why it matters
Parker helped define modern American wit while using her fame to fight for justice, making her both a literary landmark and a woman who broke ground in a male-dominated cultural world.
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