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Women’s History Month: Colleen “Koky” Dishon
Day 17 of Women’s History Month features Colleen “Koky” Dishon. She started her career covering hard news for the Associated Press during World War II. After the war, she was a progressive women’s page editor in Columbus, Ohio, and Milwaukee before moving on to Chicago. She was hired by the Chicago Tribune in 1975 and in 1982, Dishon was named associate editor, becoming the first woman listed in the Chicago Tribune’s masthead. At the Tribune, Dishon created 17 special sections that were often quickly copied at newspapers across the country. In the words of Tribune Managing Editor Ann Marie Lipinski: “Whether you have ever worked for Koky, or ever heard…
- Eleni Epstein, fashion history, fashion journalism, journalism history, women's history month, women's page history
Women’s History Month: Eleni Epstein
Day 16 of Women’s History Month features Washington Star fashion editor Eleni Epstein. She was one of the most noticeable Washington, D.C., voices in translating fashion news in the post-World War II era through 1981. Epstein found fashion to have a unique role in Washington society. After all, as she pointed out, it was her city’s unique social events that required the high couture clothing that she wrote about. “Washington women have always been interested in fashion,” she said. “Our city is one of achievers and doers.” It was a world that Epstein circulated within and would share with her readers as someone who could rarely afford many of the…
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Women’s History Month: Carol Sutton
Day 15 of Women’s History Month features Carol Sutton. She reformed her women’s page to make it more relevant in the 1960’s and was later promoted to managing editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal. She was the first woman in such a management position at a newspaper that her family did not own. During her tenure, the newspaper won Sigma Delta Chi and Roy Howard awards for public service for coverage of school desegregation in Louisville. She was a winner of a Penney-Missouri Award. She was one of several women named Time magazine’s people of the year in 1975. She remained at the newspaper after she was demoted. In 1985 she…
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Women’s History Month: Betty Ewing
Day 14 of Women’s History Month is another Texas women’s page journalist: Houston society writer Betty Ewing. Like many of her fellow female reporters during World War II, she got to cover hard news. (Other examples include Marjorie Paxson and Koky Dishon.) When the war ended, she was pushed into the women’s pages and she specialized in society coverage. She worked to broaden the definition of society to be more inclusive. Lance and I went through Betty’s papers several years ago at Texas Woman’s University. I included Betty in my recent book chapter about gossip and the women’s pages.
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Women’s History Month: Vivian Castleberry, Part 2
This is the second part of a post regarding Vivian Castleberry in honor of day 13 of Women’s History Month. In the 1950s, trailblazing Dallas women’s page editor Vivian Castleberry had to find her own way of balancing being a journalist with being the mother of five daughters. She told the male editors who she worked for to allow her some flexibility. She would do her job and meet her deadlines. But she would do it her own way and on her own schedule. As she said in her oral history: “When I went to work for the Times Herald I said, “I will do a great job for you.…
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Women’s History Month: Vivian Castleberry, Part 1
Day 13 of Women’s History Month features Dallas women’s page editor Vivian Castleberry. She was interviewed for the Washington Press Club Foundation’s Women in Journalism project. It is available here. This is how Vivian is described for the documentary Trailblazing Texas Women: “An extremely bright, articulate woman, her close-cropped gray hair, pearls and suit reminiscent of the Kennedy era, Vivian Castleberry sips her cup of tea and tells her stories with a sardonic sense of humor and the same dry wit she deployed in print to blast those that treated her as “the little woman” journalist. Vivian knew from day one that she wanted to be a writer. She attended…
A website devoted to the history of newspaper women's pages
