On Sunday, we traveled to St. Petersburg to see one of our former SIUE student-turned-journalist Holly who was in town to go through a Poynter workshop. She works at the Rapid City Journal in South Dakota. Her visit reminded me of Florida women’s page editor Beverley Morales. She, and her first husband Hector, ran the Beulah Independent in North Dakota during the 1950s. Above is an example of one of the issues. Beverley wrote the editorial. Holly and I talked about some issues in the Native American community which also reminded me of Beverley. She ran the Native American newspaper, A’tome in Lame Deer, Montana in the 1970s and married…

First Lady Betty Ford has died. She was often interviewed by women’s page editors who covered the wives of politicians. While much of the American fashion world has focused on New York City and Los Angeles in the 1950s and 1960s, Washington, D.C. was often the place for fashion to be showcased. The wives of political leaders could set – or reject – trends in the clothing they wore to the various formal functions they attended. This was, of course, before there were many female lawmakers who could set the trends themselves. And these women were often listening to what Washington Star fashion editor Eleni Epstein had to say. For…

First Lady Betty Ford has died. She was often interviewed by women’s page editors who covered the wives of politicians. While much of the American fashion world has focused on New York City and Los Angeles in the 1950s and 1960s, Washington, D.C. was often the place for fashion to be showcased. The wives of political leaders could set – or reject – trends in the clothing they wore to the various formal functions they attended. This was, of course, before there were many female lawmakers who could set the trends themselves. And these women were often listening to what Washington Star fashion editor Eleni Epstein had to say. For…

All of the coverage of the Casey Anthony trial (a local story for us here in Orlando) has me thinking about one of the few roles for women in journalism outside of the women’s pages: as “sob sisters.” These women covered trials in a sensational way. One woman who was first a sob sister and then a longtime women’s page editor for the Associated Press. Here is from an earlier post on Dorothy: Dorothy Roe was born in 1905 in Alba, Missouri. She graduated from the Missouri School of Journalism in 1924 and soon began her career as a reporter in El Dorado, Arkansas. It was a weekly newspaper that…