Top Food Editors
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Top Food Editors: Day Two & Mary Hart
The food column “Ask Mary” was written by “Mary Hart,” although her last name wasn’t Hart; it was Sorenson. Sorenson wrote under the pen name “Mary Hart” when she went to work on the women’s pages at the Minneapolis Tribune in 1945, after graduating from the the University of Minnesota. Her name then was Mary Engelhart, and the editors shortened it to Mary Hart, which they copyrighted. They planned to use that name for all the other women who, they assumed, would succeed her — and each other — every few years. (This was not unusual for the time.) The editors assumed wrong. She stayed for 44 years and the…
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Food Studies Presentation: Ohio Food Editor History
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Top Food Editors: Day One & Ruth Ellen Church
For the next 30 days, I will be blogging about a different newspaper food editor. Day one features Ruth Ellen Church, the longtime food editor at the Chicago Tribune. These food editors tested recipes, reviewed restaurants and explained new products. They wrote about rations, consumer news and nutrition research. As technology changed how food was prepared, the food editors evaluated the ease and quality for her readers. This is how Church described her job in a 1955 survey as she supervised a staff of five home economics, a secretary and a kitchen assistant: “We do most of our own food photographs, conduct a daily $5 favorite recipe competition, maintain a…
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Chicago Tribune Beauty Editor Eleanor Nagle
