Women’s History Month: Mary Action Hammond

Day 22 of Women’s History Month features Mary Acton Hammond who used the pen name “Frances Blackwood” for the Philadelphia Bulletin.

Mary Acton Hammond was hired as the newspaper’s first food editor in 1929. She worked out of her own kitchen where she tested her recipes – for 53 years.

In 1941, she traveled to England interviewing British women about how they prepared food during the war. It led to a series of columns which First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt mentioned in her “My Day” column.

In looking to normalize and understand the women of war-torn Britain, Philadelphia Bulletin food editor Mary Acton Hammond, who used the pen name “Francis Blackwood,” traveled to the United Kingdom. It all began with a February 7, 1942 letter she wrote to the newspaper’s managing editor. She wrote:
There is, I believe, a deep need in this country for a clearer understanding of what the war is doing to the homes of England. We do read and see pictures of women in war industries in England, but the most these seems to inspire is a wish to wear uniforms that look snappy. There has been nothing to give us a hint of the homes those girls left in the morning and will return to at night, or what those uniforms are costing in home-life.

Her editor agreed and booked her a seat on a Pan-Am flight for England. She would stay for six weeks and interview the women about their home lives and the foods they prepared. She described the rationing system and the lack of food delivery trucks due to gasoline shortages. She told the stories of women who worked 10-hour shifts in factories while cooking her brother and father meals. Each day she sent back a story for her newspaper. In sampling, she wrote about lack of fruit, the difficulty of matching ration books to local stores and swapping practice to trade foods.

The columns were eventually published in the book, Mrs. England Goes on Living.

Her reporting on these women reminded me of the introduction of the great book: Grandma’s Wartime Kitchen by Joanne Lamb Hayes.

She retired as food editor in 1982.

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