journalism history
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Day Two of Favorite Newspaper Fashion Editors: Judy Lunn
Judy Lunn was the fashion editor of the Houston Post – one of the four “fs” of the women’s pages. Fashion was part of her family’s history. Her grandfather was a furrier. Her aunt was a lingerie designer who created a trousseau for Elizabeth Taylor when she married Eddie Fisher and a maternity gown for Lucille Ball. Lunn won her first writing award at age nine for a story on fire prevention. And while she had a knack for writing, it was fashion that caught her interest. She graduated a year early from Hunter High School in New York City. She attended the Rhode Island School of Design to study…
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Day One of Favorite Newspaper Fashion Editors: Aileen Ryan
This week I will be blogging about my favorite newspaper fashion editors – beginning with the Milwaukee Journal’s Aileen Ryan – a three-time Penney-Missouri Award winner. During her first summer of work in 1921, Ryan attended a meeting to hear Milwaukee Journal Editor Marvin Creager say he was happy to have females on the staff because “women have cleaned up newspaper offices.” Ryan later recalled the statement made her feel as though she had been hired to use a mop. Ryan started under the editorship of women’s page journalist Elizabeth B. Moffet. Moffett had been recruited from the Kansas City Star, where she had pioneered a new method of covering…
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Pearl Harbor & Women’s Page Editor Drue Lytle
Today is the anniversary of Pearl Harbor. Hugh Lytle was the journalist whose teletype message provided Associated Press and the world with the first account of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He was married to award-winning Hawaii women’s page editor Drue Lytle. Here is Hugh’s obituary. Drue is mentioned in it. I have been collecting data about Drue for the past few years. The last few months have been especially fruitful. I found the above clip which answered many questions and I also located some great letters at the Western Historical Manuscript Collection. I heard from one of Drue’s relatives a few months ago and plan to follow up.
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NCA Presentations About a Food Editor & an Advice Columnist
Jane nickerson from Kimberly Voss This morning I presented a paper at NCA Convention that Lance and I wrote about the first food editor at the New York Times: Jane Nickerson. The food news ran in the women’s section. Eleanor hart.nca from Kimberly Voss In the afternoon, we presented a paper about Eleanor Hart and her advice column that ran in the Miami Herald in the 1960s. It was named a top paper in its division. It was great to tell the stories of these important but often forgotten women.
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Out On Assignment Book Review
Here is my book review of Alica Fahs’ book Out On Assignment: Newspaper Women and the Making of the Modern Public Sphere. The review was published in Journalism History. I liked the book and appreciate the increased scholarship about newspaper women. I would have liked to see more of an appreciation about the women’s pages and soft news.
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Society Coverage
I am finishing the revisions on my book chapter on women and gossip – focusing on the content of the women’s pages. Today I wrote about Kathryn Robinette. Kathryn Robinette won Penney-Missouri Awards for her women’s section of the Palm Beach Post in 1966 and 1968. She earned an undergraduate degree and then a master’s degree in English from the University of Chicago before trying women’s page journalism in 1960 in Georgia. She wrote in a letter: “I typed weddings and all that tiresome stuff but managed to fall in love with the work anyway. I also formed firm opinions about what type of story best served the reader’s interest…
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Writing Women into the Curriculum
