In the 31 years she was editor of Glamour magazine, Whitney oversaw an increase in readership and advertising revenue, and introduced new features and columns to it.
[5][10] She discovered she could find work at Newsweek and Fortune among other publications; she said later in life that this was because "she had a uterus", and sought employment on women's magazines.
In January 1967, Samuel Irving Newhouse Jr., chairman of media company Condé Nast, employed Whitney as editor-of-chief of Glamour.
[3] Throughout the 1970s, she introduced multiple how-to-do guides authored by specialists to recognize the changing needs of college students and working women, and new columns on health, home economics, love, and sex.
Whitney devoted 24 pages of the January 1990 issue to Men and Romance, yet the lead article was The Sexually Confidant Woman to retain Glamour's tradition to maintain a balanced points of view.
[4] But on August 17, 1998,[4] Newhouse suggested to Whitney it was the right time for her to retire, and informed her he had employed former Cosmopolitan editor Bonnie Fuller to fill her former position.
[3] Her final day as Glamour's editor-of-chief was October 5, 1998,[3][4] and she admitted to being disappointed that Newhouse did not consult her about being replaced and publicly felt Fuller was not the best selection.
[3] She was a member of Northwestern University's Council of 100 Women, and was named recipient of the 1996 Henry Johnson Fisher Award from the MPA – the Association of Magazine Media.
[10] She was diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in 1997, causing her to lose the ability to speak and swallow,[6] and died from the condition at her home in Irvington, New York,[11][12] on June 4, 1999.
[1][2] Whitney was frank, kept a low profile as editor by not running a note at the front of Glamour,[5] intelligent, open-minded,[14] and was highly private about her personal life.