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President Nixon & women
I have been working on an article about Vera Glaser, who in addition to being a women’s page political reporter was also a member of a White House Committee on women’s roles. Her question to the president at a press conference about the lack of women in government earned her national attention. In my research I came across the above photo and an interesting column on the Nixon Library website. Here is part of the column:“Looking back now, we know that President Nixon’s actions brought gender equality into the mainstream of American life. He made equality “legitimate.” This legitimacy rippled through our society and helped create new opportunities for women…
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NCA Paper Acceptance
My paper, “Who’s Wearing the Pants? How The New York Times Reported the Changing Dress of Women,” has been accepted for the fall National Communication Association convention in San Francisco – where Lance and I got married. I looked at the literal and symbolic power of women wearing pants. I included a story about women’s page editor Marj Paxson who went on to become a publisher of the Muskogee Phoenix in the 1980s. On the first day, she changed the policy for female employees – they could now wear pants. From the paper:She later learned that many of the female employees went shopping that evening. The next day, of the…
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Women and Newspaper Management
I recently came across information about this seminar in this article and I am thankful to the archivist at the University of Indiana who found and scanned this program. This page shows that Janet Chusmir (E.E. of the Miami Herald) and Carol Sutton (M.E. of the Louisville Courier-Journal) attended the seminar. Both women went from the women’s pages to newspaper management. I am looking at the career paths of both women, especially because they had children. I am hoping to track down a video of the seminar. I have located a copy at the University of Illinois. My biography of Carol Sutton will be published this month in a national…
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Bobbi McCallum article published
My article about Seattle women’s page journalist Bobbi McCallum is in this month’s issue of Columbia, the Magazine of Northwest History. It is now available here.
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Great home ec quote & photo
I found a great collection of home ec photos from Purdue University. The above image is from 1955. Ann Hamman earned her master’s degree in home ec from Purude University in the 1940s. She went on to become the food editor at the Evansville Courier. I am beginning to collect information about her career and exploring the intersection of women’s pages and home economics. I also came across this quote yesterday: “Home economics has not fared well at the hands of historians. Until recently women’s historians largely dismissed home economics as little more than a conspiracy to keep women in the kitchen.” (Sarah Stage, “Home Economics: What’s in a name?”…
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March Madness
With the Final Four teams set, I was thinking of which of the women’s page editors were the biggest sports fans. Billie O’Day (of the Miami News) loved the Miami Hurricanes so much, she used to follow the sports photographer onto the field. Roberta Applegate (of the Miami Herald) continued to follow the Michigan State teams after graduation and wrote to her parents about winning games. But the biggest sports fan had to be the Las Vegas Sun’s Ruthe Deskin (featured above). She said several times that her dream job was to coach the basketball team at UNLV. My article about Ruthe will come out sometime this year.
A website devoted to the history of newspaper women's pages
