doi:10.7916/wd89-q775Oral history interview with Elisabeth Sifton, 2018Sifton, Elisabethoral historiesmixed materialEditorsBook editorsPublishers and publishingAuthors, American--20th centurySifton, ElisabethNiebuhr, Reinhold, 1892-1971Niebuhr, UrsulaFrederick A. Praeger, IncViking PressAlfred A. Knopf, IncFarrar, Straus, and GirouxUnion Theological Seminary (New York, N.Y.)United States. Department of StateElisabeth Sifton begins the interview with a lengthy discussion growing up in the community around Union Theological Seminary. She discusses her parents Reinhold and Ursula Niebuhr, with recurrent focus on her relationship with her mother. She discusses her parents and her own views on politics, religion, civil rights, and women's rights. She recalls family friends W.H. Auden and Arthur Schlesinger. She speaks about experiences at Radcliffe College and her marriage to her first husband Charles Sifton. Sifton describes her experience at the Kennedy Administration's State Department and the Washington, DC intellectual milieu around family friend Felix Frankfurter. She discusses her entry into publishing at Frederick A. Praeger, Inc. She analyzes the personality of founder Praeger, work on nonfiction books, the workplace culture at the publishing house, and its funding from the Central Intelligence Agency. She also discusses working on art books with an extended anecdote about a book on the Libyan archeological site Leptis Magna and her visit decades later. Sifton also discusses her work at Viking Press at length, including work with Saul Bellow and Peter Matthiessen. She speaks about the lawsuit surrounding Matthiessen's In the Spirit of Crazy Horse She also discusses the impacts of Viking's acquisition by Pearson Longman, Viking colleagues such as Alan Williams and Corlies (Cork) Smith, the general impact of Wall Street involvement in publishing from the 1970s. She describes being recruited to Alfred A. Knopf by Sonny Mehta; her career trajectory there and at Farrar, Straus, and Giroux; the influence of Roger Straus; her work with the Hillman and Wang imprint; and her departure from FSG in 2008. She also shares brief impressions of many authors with whom she worked