-
Christmas & the Penney-Missouri Awards
Throughout 1960s, the winners of the Penney-Missouri Awards (the top recognition for the women’s pages) received a telegram on Christmas morning. For those multiple winners, it was like a child waking up on Dec. 25th waiting for a knock on the door. Many of the women wrote letters about how exciting it was to learn they had won on Christmas. Merry Christmas from Curtis!
-
Harry Reid & Ruthe Deskin
Today, health care reform passed due to the work of Nevada Harry Reid. Here is an article about his strategy. Harry was connected to one of the woman I study – Las Vegas journalist Ruthe Deskin. Through the Las Vegas Sun, oversaw a high school leadership program and recruited Harry when he was a student. Years later, he said he felt accountable to Ruthe when she criticized him in her newspaper column. I have been exchanging messages today with Las Vegas historian Mike Green about how proud Ruthe would have been of Sen. Reid. My article about Ruthe comes out this Spring.
-
Beverley Morales
Here is a great bio on Beverley Morales in her post-women’s page years. After many years as a Penney-Missouri Award winner in Florida and Ohio in the 1960s. (She was also a journalist in Iowa, Mexico City and North Dakota in the 1950s.) After the end of the sections, she went back west and devoted the rest of her life to Native American causes. In this bio, she briefly ran a cafe. One of my 2010 goals is to finish collecting information on her long career and get a draft of an article written. I have been lucky enough to track down her three sisters who have each been very…
-
Jeanne Bellamy
I am doing some early searching on Jeanne Bellamy. She was the first woman on the editorial board at the Miami Herald. That is a photo of her above at an editorial meeting. She started at the Miami Tribune in the 1930s and joined the Herald after the Knight brothers bought the Tribune. In addition to her journalism, she was also later a civic and business leader. She appeared to have avoided the women’s pages but she was a friend of Dorothy Jurney and Helen Muir who did work for the Miami Herald women’s section.
-
Women journalists who came second
Last night we watched Diane Sawyer’s debut as anchor of the ABC Evening News. She is the second woman to be a solo anchor of the national evening news. There has not been too much publicity (especially compared to when Katie was the first) although she is getting good reviews in the media sections. Of the few women’s page editors who went on to management, it was typically the ones who came second, third or fourth who had success. For example, Gloria Biggs was the first female publisher in the Gannett chain after being the women’s page editor in St. Pete. She was not adequately trained and only served a…
-
Albert Applegate
I just completed our Christmas cards including one for Albert Applegate. Albert is the brother of the late Roberta Applegate, women’s page journalist in the 1950s and 1960s in Michigan and then Miami. (She was also a wire reporter during WWII and a journalistic/PR first in several areas.) One of my favorite moments was presenting her Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame Award to him at Michigan State a few years ago. Below is video of me giving the award to Albert and then his acceptance.
A website devoted to the history of newspaper women's pages
