Edee Greene
- Anne Rowe, Beverley Morales, Edee Greene, Florida history, Florida newspapers, Florida Women's Pages, Gloria Biggs, Janet Chusmir, Marie Anderson
Importance of Women & Regional History
I am in the middle of reviewing Eileen M. Wirth’s book From Society Page to Front Page: Nebraska Women in Journalism for an Iowa history journal. It is an important book and I enjoyed her closing messages: “I had no idea how many women of achievement in journalism and other fields have been overlooked even in state and regional histories where they might be expected to appear.” (p 163) Further, she wrote “We cannot understand the history of women in the United States unless we consider local and regional dimensions because family obligations have limited the geographic and career mobility of the vast majority of American women.” (pg 164) Her…
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Talking About Florida Women’s Page Editors
I enjoyed talking about Florida women’s page editors this morning on the ReThinking the City radio program on Rollin College’s WPRK. Florida was the place to be for women’s page journalists in the 1950s and 1960s. They were a progressive group who dominated the Penney-Missouri Awards – the top recognition for the women’s pages. The Fort Lauderdale News women’s page editor Edee Greene is in the far right in the photo. Her grandson Patrick was a co-host on the radio program.
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Women’s History Month: Edee Greene, Part II
I was more than a little disappointed to read this sexist headline and lead in the Orlando Sentinel yesterday:“Mom wrestles alligator away from school as last bell rings” “When a pushy 7-foot alligator tried to break through a chain-link fence onto the Clermont Middle School campus on Thursday, Lake County mom Jessica McGregor took charge. McGregor, who’s also a Lake County deputy, didn’t want to wait nearly two hours for a distant trapper to show up and cart the offending party off to his destiny as an expensive purse. Especially when the final bell of the school day was ringing and parents were picking up students.” There was no need…
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Women’s History Month: Edee Greene, Part I
Day 23 of Women’s History Month features Fort Lauderdale News women’s page editor Edee Greene. Greene was a Penney-Missouri award-winning Florida women’s page editor. Her section included progressive content that tackled important social issues in Fort Lauderdale. A Florida resident since the age of 12, she began her media career with radio station WSUN in St. Petersburg in 1932. She wrote soap opera scripts and had her own movie show. A year later, she married Tom Greene. She left radio to take care of her family and working for her husband’s advertising business. It ended after 17 years, leaving her financially and emotionally drained. She was suddenly a single mother…
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The Importance of Weddings Coverage
I loved this New York Times wedding story from yesterday that is getting a lot of buzz. From the story: “The bride, 97, is keeping her name.” While often overlooked as soft news, wedding stories can have value. They were a key part of the women’s pages for decades. As Chicago Editor Colleen “Koky” Dishon noted: “As we wrote about weddings and births and debutante balls, we learned about the importance of rites and rituals in people’s lives.” And there were journalism lessons in reporting about those rituals in the lives of women. Fort Lauderdale News women’s page editor Edee Greene pointed out that writing up engagement and wedding announcements…
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Wearing Pants: Fashion & Feminism
The New York Times published a story this week about women wearing pants as a protest to women’s roles in the Mormon Church. According to the article: “Wear Pants to Church,” an event on Sunday, was meant to draw attention to the role of women in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, using attire as a symbolic first salvo in a larger struggle over gender inequalities. Though the Mormon Church has no official policy against women wearing pants to church, many say they feel peer pressure to wear a dress, particularly in the Western United States, organizers said.” This is not a new idea. Fort Lauderdale women’s page…
