Washington Food Editors & Pen Names
I am working on a history magazine article about three of the 1950s era food editors in Washington State who all wrote under pen names: Dorothy Dean (Spokesman-Review), Dorothy Neighbors (Seattle Times) and Prudence Penny (Seattle Post-Intelligencer).
My goal is to tell the stories of the women behind the pen names. For example, this is Joan Conner McDonnell who wrote for the Dorothy Neighbors department. She raised eight children and went back to the newspaper each time. Her daughter Mimi said: “I am proud to say that my mother was a feminist before the phrase was coined, as well as after it was used as a pejorative label.”
Another longtime writer under the Dorothy Neighbors byline was Marion Ferriss Guinn.