Death of Jean Sharley Taylor
I was sorry to hear that former women’s page editor Jean Sharley Taylor had died although I liked her obituary which was posted today:
“Jean Sharley Taylor — a woman whose talent and persistence earned her a place in cigar-chomping newsrooms where women were often seen as unsuited to the gritty work of real reporting.
“I’ve come to appreciate her as a feminist from a generation before feminism was identified,” her son said.
When she started as a reporter at the Detroit Free Press in 1950, Taylor literally had no seat in the all-male newsroom. She was given a gluepot, a typewriter and a cubbyhole on another floor.
“A new editor came and asked, ‘Who is this woman who’s writing miraculous copy for the front page? Why isn’t she in the newsroom?’ ” John Taylor said. The editor led her to a permanent desk in the newsroom, amid mutters from her colleagues about the paper putting up lace curtains.”
When the Detroit newspaper went on strike, Jean went to Miami and worked for Marie Anderson’s women’s page section. Later, she was the women’s page editor at the Arizona Republic, after Maggie Savoy had made over the section.
I was lucky enough to interview Jean a few times and enjoyed hearing about the women’s pages of the 1960s. She was a pioneer for women in journalism.
