I just came across this image of legendary women’s page editor Dorothy Jurney – taken while she was at the Detroit Free-Press. My article about Dorothy was in the Spring 2010 issue of Journalism History.

The Los Angeles Times food blog featured this story today about a bias against West Coast cookbook authors. It used to be that newspaper food editors were regular cookbook authors. For example, Ruth Ellen Church published several cookbooks as food editor at the Chicago Tribune. In terms of  West Coast newspaper editors/cookbook authors – my favorite is Jeanne Volz, who wrote for the L.A. Times and published two well-reviewed California cookbooks. My article about Jeane comes out in the Spring issue of American Journalism.

Happy Easter from Mr. Curtis and the Easter Bunny!

I just applied for a grant from the Culinary Historians of New York about a food journalist – whose writing was found in the women’s pages. The proposed research is about Cecily Brownstone, who wrote cookbooks and twice-a-week feature articles on food for the Associated Press for 39 years. From 1947 until she retired in 1986, Brownstone wrote two columns on cuisine and five recipes a week for the A.P., an estimated 14,200 articles. Brownstone amassed a collection of some 8,000 cookbooks, 5,000 food pamphlets and hundreds of letters, which she donated to the Fales Collection at New York University in 2002. The research would establish a place for Brownstone…

A few days ago, the Glendale News-Press in California (near Los Angeles) ran this story about one of the women’s organizations of the 1940s and 1950s. From the story: “The Foothill Service Club for the Blind has found a good and lasting friend in Oakmont League, which for more than two years has made the club its major philanthropy,” wrote Betty Preston, Glendale News-Press Women’s Editor, in 1948. “This year, in addition to actual hours spent with club members in craft work, the league presented $3,000 to the building fund. The gift, more than half of the $5,400 proceeds from Gold Gulch, is double that given last year,” Preston wrote.…

The Sallie Bingham Center has officially announced the winners of the Mary Lily Travel grants. It is available here. I am going to go through the papers of Robin Morgan (pictured above) and look for her interactions with newspaper journalists – especially anyone in the women’s page community – about feminism. I am very appreciative of the opportunity.