Mary Action Hammond
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Women’s History Month: Mary Action Hammond
Day 22 of Women’s History Month features Mary Acton Hammond who used the pen name “Frances Blackwood” for the Philadelphia Bulletin. Mary Acton Hammond was hired as the newspaper’s first food editor in 1929. She worked out of her own kitchen where she tested her recipes – for 53 years. In 1941, she traveled to England interviewing British women about how they prepared food during the war. It led to a series of columns which First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt mentioned in her “My Day” column. In looking to normalize and understand the women of war-torn Britain, Philadelphia Bulletin food editor Mary Acton Hammond, who used the pen name “Francis Blackwood,”…