journalism history
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Beach conservation and women’s pages
We spent Thanksgiving at the beach. (Curtis’s first trip to the ocean!) Women’s page journalists were often advocates for beach conservation before it was popular. This was especially true if local women’s clubs took up the cause. Below is some video of Miami Herald editorial page writer Juanita Greene speaking about her conservation efforts. (She worked with women’s page editor Maria Anderson in the 1960s.)
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Writing Women into the Curriculum
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Jim Bellows letters to Helen Muir
I came across these letters from Jim Bellows to Helen Muir in Helen Muir’s papers at the University of Miami. Helen wrote for the women’s page of the Miami News when Jim was an editor at the newspaper. (Helen would go on to be a book editor at the Miami Herald. Jim became a legendary newspaper editor.) The two stayed in touch over the years. Here is a link to a letter than Helen wrote to Jim following the death of his second wife, Maggie Savoy. I am working on collecting information about both Helen and Jim. They were both great journalists and advocates for women in the field.
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Bravo & the Four Fs
I spent the afternoon catching up on Bravo shows on TiVo: Top Chef and Project Runway. (I am pretending that Project Runway is not on Lifetime.) It’s one of the best parts of maternity leave – spending the afternoon with Curtis on the sofa. Much of Bravo’s programming revolves around the four Fs of the women’s pages: family, fashion, food and furnishings. If the women I study were around today, Eleni Epstein would be a great Project Runway judge. (That’s her in the photo above.) She was the longtime fashion editor at the Washington Star and a real personality – usually just going by “eleni.” Jeanne Voltz, food editor at…
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Dorothy Jurney edits
Today I am working on final edits on my article about legendary women’s page editor Dorothy Jurney. It is scheduled to run in a national journal next Spring. Dorothy was likely the best known women’s page editor in the country in the 1950s and 1960s. Her newspaper career began during the Great Depression and ended in the 1980s which made telling her story a daunting task. Much of the material for the article came from Dorothy’s papers at the Western Historical Manuscript Collection at the University of Missouri – my favorite archive.
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Reporting From Washington
I just started reading the book, Reporting From Washington. Sadly, there is no reference to Vera Glaser who was a longtime Washington reporter. (Much of her work ran in the women’s pages in the 1950s and 1960s.) She was also a columnist – writing the Offbeat Washington column. She was a great reporter – earning several scoops over the years. I went through Vera’s papers at the University of Wyoming. I presented a paper about her last Spring and am drafting an article about Vera for a future publication.
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Carol Sutton revisions
I just finished my final revisions on my article about Carol Sutton for a national journal. Carol was an amazing women’s page editor at the Louisville Courier-Journal. She went on to become the first female managing editor at a daily metropolitan newspaper. I am so happy that Carol’s story will be told. It was wonderful to speak with her husband and her daughters.
