In Memoriam: Jeanne Hammond

Post date: May 4, 2019 6:41:46 PM

Jeanne Hammond died at Piper Shores retirement home in Scarborough, Maine on May 1, 2019. She was 98 years old.

She was the daughter of Bradley Bancroft Hammond and Ethel Armstrong Hammond. Born in Los Angeles, California she grew up in Yonkers, New York, graduated from Scarborough (NY) School and in 1943 from Wellesley College with a BA in History of Art. She was predeceased by a brother, Bradley B. Hammond, Jr., and a sister, Barbara (Mrs. David G.) McGrath. She was the niece of Major Edwin Howard Armstrong, inventor of FM radio and other circuits basic to radio communications that are used in every radio, TV, and in 98% of today’s cell phones.

During the early days of FM, she worked for her uncle in his laboratory at Columbia University. Then, wishing to work in a field more uniquely her own, she switched to publishing. She was for a number of years Associate Art Editor of Woman’s Day and Good Housekeeping Magazines and Editor-in-Chief of the Simplicity Catalog. During the 1960’s and early 1970’s she was a Product Manager with the Colgate-Palmolive Company where she specialized in new product development. She was the company’s first woman product manager. Following her work at Colgate she was a free-lance photojournalist published in newspapers and magazines across the country. In recent years she managed the Armstrong Family Archives furnishing material to writers, TV and film producers, and historians doing research on her uncle.