PASSINGS: Judith Glassman Daniels

Judith Glassman Daniels

Pioneering editor who oversaw

creation of Savvy magazine

Judith Glassman Daniels, 74, a pioneering editor who oversaw creation of a magazine for executive women called Savvy at a time when magazines catered to stay-at-home mothers, died Sept. 1 of stomach cancer at her home in Union, Maine, said her husband, Lee Webb.

In a career that spanned 35 years in New York, Daniels served in senior editing positions at the Village Voice, New York magazine, Time Inc. and Conde Nast. At Life magazine, she oversaw the publication’s 50th anniversary.

Savvy originated as an insert in New York magazine in 1977, then was published separately in January 1980.

“We want to reach women with higher income, higher education, a higher job level — women who also have serious aspirations about their work,” Daniels told The Times in 1979.

She was editor in chief of the magazine until leaving in 1982. Its last issue was published in 1991.

Daniels was born March 19, 1939, in Cambridge, Mass., and grew up in nearby Brookline. She set off for New York after receiving her English degree from Smith College in 1960, rising through the ranks in magazines.

John MacMillan, editorial director at Smith College, where Daniels was a longtime member of the Smith Alumnae Council, called her a “change-maker” who helped the next generation of women get ahead.

“She was thinking about the issues facing successful professional women long before they were trendy, like work-life balance and the pressure that women face to get ideas heard,” he said. “She was thinking about those way back in the 1970s and ‘80s.”

Daniels spent childhood summers in Maine. She and Webb retired there in 2004.

Times staff and wire reports

news.obits@latimes.com