women's page history
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Frances Foster as Advice Columnist Molly Mayfield
I found this image of Francis Foster who authored the longtime (some say first) newspaper advice column. It was published in the women’s pages.
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Thesis About Newspaper Advice Columns
I appreciate UCF’s ILL for tracking down this thesis, “A Value-Analysis of Advice Columns in Newspapers” from 1953 at the University of Texas. These columns typically ran in the women’s section of newspapers. In this study, the author examined the following columns: Mrs. Mayfield’s Mailbag (Denver Rocky Mountain News), Martha Carr’s Opinion (St. Louis Post-Dispatch), Mary Haworth’s Mail (San Jose Mercury) and The Good Neighbor/Anita Day Hubbard (San Francisco Examiner). These women will be a part of my upcoming book about women’s page journalism. I am collecting information abut them – including the work of Mary Haworth, which was the pen name for Mary Elizabeth Young. Her papers are at…
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Seattle P-I’s Lettie Gavin
I found another women’s page journalist to add to the book: Lettie Gavin. From her obituary:”Lettie Gavin: 1922-2006: ‘Collecting people’s stories is what she was about’ At one point in the 1970s, during Lettie Gavin’s Seattle P-I career, editor Jack Doughty spotted her purse on her desk and had a fit. The old-school newspaperman didn’t like it sitting there.Gavin, a trailblazer for women in the newsroom, responded, “This is where I keep it.”It stayed. And so did she. Gavin, a former editor and reporter known for her attention-grabbing way with words and curiosity about the world, died Monday from pneumonia, said her son Tom Gudmestad, 53. The Queen Anne resident,…
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Women’s Page Journalists at the Boston Globe
This is one of the few books about newspapers I have found that address women’s pages. I am also hoping it addresses advice columns as the Boston Globe had one of the most popular columns – Confidential Chat.
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Boston Globe’s Confidential Chat Study
I just received this interesting study about the long-running advice column in the Boston Globe, “Confidential Chat.” This research looked at columns in 1900, 1930 and 1970. It was interesting to read about how questions and answers changed over the years. I previously looked at advice columns in this book chapter and in an entry in the The Social History of the American Family: An Encyclopedia. Advice columns typically ran in the women’s pages of newspapers. The columns will be a part of my upcoming book about women’s page journalism.
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Women’s Page Journalist Ruth Millett
I came across a new women’s page journalist to study: Ruth Linwood Millett. Her papers are at TCU. This is her bio from the school’s website: “Ruth Linwood Millett was born February 10, 1912 to Ralph and Alice Millett in Dallas, Texas. The family moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where Ralph Millett, was a columnist and editor of the Memphis Press-Scimitar. After graduating from the University of Iowa, Millett became dean of women at Northwest Missouri State Teachers College in Maryville. She eventually moved to New York City to follow in her father’s footsteps and pursue a career in journalism. Millett soon began writing two syndicated columns, Mind Your Manners and…
