Poet and writer Dorothy Parker (born Dorothy Rothschild) was born on August 22, 1893, in Long Branch, New Jersey. Parker’s mother died when she was just four years old. She went on to have an unhappy, though privileged, childhood living with her father and stepmother. After her father’s death when she was 20, Parker earned money by playing piano at a dance school. Parker sold her first poem to Vanity Fair in 1914. And within a few months she was hired as an editorial Assistant for Vogue magazine. Two years later she took a job as a staff writer for Vogue. She then met and married stockbroker Edwin Pond Parker II. While working at Vanity Fair, Parker wrote the theater reviews and met fellow writers Robert Benchley and Robert Sherwood. Almost every day, the three writers met for lunch at the Algonquin Hotel, forming the basis of the Algonquin Round Table. Over time other writers joined them and they shared stories, jokes, and witty remarks. Newspaper columnists Franklin Pierce Adams and Alexander Woollcott began sharing some of their stories in print, which helped earn Parker a national reputation for her wit.