Dagmar Cronn was a journalist and the first woman editor of a trade newspaper in the Swedish daily press.

Dagmar Cronn was born in Oskarshamn, as the second child of Ida Josefina and Per August Emil Petersson. Apart from that, nothing is known about the years of her childhood and youth. When she was in her thirties, she took the name Cronn.

Dagmar Cronn was appointed as an editor at the major Swedish daily newspaper Svenska Dagbladet in 1925. She had gathered merits qualifying her for this appointment through her studies at Frans Schartau’s Trade Institute in Stockholm, apprenticeship in Germany and appointments at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Swedish Handelsbanken’s secretariat. Dagmar Cronn remained at Svenska Dagbladet’s editorial office for several decades. She was at that time the only woman with such a position in the contemporary Swedish daily press, in the field known today as business journalism.

Dagmar Cronn’s contribution to the editorial office has been described by the editor Ivar Anderson as extraordinary on account of the way she worked on the quiet, so that her name was most often invisible in the newspaper. He was of the opinion that few readers understood who stood behind the much read business section that was regarded with great confidence and respect. Dagmar Cronn’s work contribution was made visible anyway through certain publicity in the newspaper. In 1936, the brochure Att läsa tidningen was published and handed out to all subscribers. In this brochure and also in the newspaper, an account was given of Dagmar Cronn’s important work. In 1951, hon appeared in a photograph when the newspaper presented the 13 women journalists currently employed at Svenska Dagbladet. According to the text, Dagmar Cronn’s duties were to edit the business page and comment on events, with the emphasis on rapid and authoritative news services. When the newspaper advertised itself as a quality newspaper in 1955, her work was presented as well as the fact that she had contributed to increasing the respect for the business page through her editing.

When Dagmar Cronn retired in 1959, after 34 years of service at Svenska Dagbladet, the newspaper wrote about her enormous work output. The unsigned article asserted that working hours never had any meaning for her; the business page was given priority over her private life, comfort, leisure and everything else. Her circle of friends were people at the editorial office where she was known as “Cronan” (The Crown), and among her woman friends during the 1940s and 1950s may be named Astrid Ljungström, Synnöve Bellander, Greta Bolin, Ven Nyberg and Kajsa Rootzén.

Dagmar Cronn died in Stockholm in April 1968. She is buried at the Sandborg Cemetery in Gamla Enskede.