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Milwaukee Journal furnishings editor Lois Hagen
I am researching the career of Milwaukee Journal furnishing reporter Lois Hagen. According to this article: Lois was born in Westby, Wisconsin in 1918. She put herself through university at a time when it was unusual for a woman to do something other than earn a teaching certificate. Lois worked as a journalist, at Time, with the Associated Press and for the bulk of her career at the Milwaukee Journal. She set new standards for women, being the first woman to return to the Journal after having a child, having a successful career and a family. The above in-house ad from 1953 demonstrates a trend that I have seen in…
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Wedding News
There has been quite an outcry about this New York Times wedding story that ran on Sunday. Wedding news was a large part of women’s pages – and at many newspapers, that is where social change occurred. In the 1950s, Colleen “Koky” Dishon changed the practice of running large bride photos of prominent families in the Milwaukee Sentinel. Instead, the size of all photos were equal. From the day Vivian Castleberry started working at the Dallas Times Herald in the 1950s, she said that she intended to publish pictures of African-American brides, although it was against policy. When she asked for permission to publish photos of African-American brides on a…
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Bonnie Cashin and fashion journalism
Thanks to Facebook, I just found this video about designer Bonnie Cashin. She was interviewed at length by Washington Star fashion reporter and women’s page editor Eleni Epstein in the 1960s. In the new book, The World’s Most Influential Fashion Designers, Isaac Mizrahi mentions Cashin as being an inspiration (pg 29). I have applied for a grant to go through Cashin’s papers at UCLA to learn how she communicated with newspaper fashion journalists.
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Clarice Rowlands
Yesterday’s response to a post about Clarice Rowlands inspired me to look back at the Milwaukee Journal women’s page and food journalist in the 1940s through 1960s. After a search of her work, I found a brief profile of Rowlands. She was a native of Cambria, Wisconsin. She earned a degree in journalism in 1936 from the University of Wisconsin. She worked at the Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1937 to 1943. In June 1944, she joined the women’s pages as a general assignment reporter and later worked on the society desk. She eventually made her way to the food section. She won numerous awards for food writing – the Vesta…
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Sally Quinn is overrated
Once again, the Washington Post is claiming to have changed the women’s pages into an updated Style section. Here is the most recent reference, tied to an award for the overrated Sally Quinn: “Sally, you all know, is a force to be reckoned with. She is widely credited with creating the Style section of The Washington Post. The section used to be known in that dismissive way as the “Women’s” section. And much as my grandmother blew up tradition when she refused to go nicely to the parlor with the women after a dinner while the men talked about serious things, Sally blew up the so-called Women’s section and made…
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St. Monica’s Chili
Last night I made St. Monica’s Chili – although Lance added beer to it. According to the Milwaukee Journal story: the late Peggy Daum, who was The Journal’s food editor, wrote: “The recipe originally came from an old Edgewood College cookbook. It won an informal taste-off for the easiest, tastiest chili to serve at the antique show. “Through the years, the recipe has changed as various cooks concocted it. It has fewer beans now and a lot less salt. Instead it has more onions and green peppers, and more variety in the seasonings.” I working on summarizing several of the stories that Peggy wrote from 1955 through the 1980s. It…
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Food Studies Presentation: Ohio Food Editor History
A website devoted to the history of newspaper women's pages
