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Joan Younger Dickinson & the Ladies Home Journal
Lance & I sent in our paper about wire and magazine writer Joan Younger Dickinson to a journal this week. Much of Younger Dickinson’s magazine writing in the 1950s and 1960s focused on women’s political & volunteer work – which was like the content found in progressive women’s pages of newspapers. We went through her papers at the University of Wyoming several years ago and presented a paper at the Popular Culture Association convention in San Francisco in 2007. My fingers are crossed that the papers finds a home.
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The end of A.P.I.
I was sad to hear that A.P.I. (American Press Institute) is merging with N.A.A.F. Here is more about the merger. In the 1950s, prior to the beginning of the Penney-Missouri Awards, the seminars at A.P.I. were one of the only places that women’s page editors could network. Editors Gloria Biggs, Vivian Castleberry, Anne Rowe and Dorothy Jurney attended and presented at A.P.I. Castleberry said in her oral history that API gave her the motivation to make her section progressive. Lance and I went to a API seminar about Lifestyle Editors in Virginia a few years ago although the topics were more 1950s than Vivian likely encountered.
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Writing about Beverley Morales
We spent Sunday at out favorite beach – Playalinda at Cape Canaveral. It was a perfect day – 78 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. I worked on my presentation on women’s page editor Beverley Morales and her years at the Sun Sentinel. I will present the paper at the Florida Conference of Historians in Lake City next month. The talk is largely based on her letters to and from Penney-Missouri Awards’ Director Paul Myhre that are housed at the University of Missouri. I will be comparing and contrasting her career to other Florida women’s page editors.
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Drue Lytle’s master’s thesis
I recently came across the master’s thesis of Hawaii women’s page editor Druzella “Drue” Lytle. She wrote “A study of the plays of Rachel Crothers,” under her maiden name Druzella E. Goodwin while at Occidental College in 1937. The UCF ILL was able to track it down and send me a copy. It was very well written although the dedication page did not include a reference to her family. I have not been able to track down information about Drue prior to her college years. I am in the early stages of outlining Drue’s life and career.
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Book chapter about women and gossip
I learned on Friday that my proposal for a book chapter about women and gossip had been accepted – the CFP was on H-Net. This was the call for proposed chapters. I am looking at the concept through the role of gossip both in the political columns and the advice columns that ran in women’s pages. While both kinds of columns have been discounted because either they contained “women’s news” or were in the “women’s sections,” these columns played important roles. One of the most significant political columnists was Vera Glaser – she is pictured above. Lance and I went through her papers several years ago at the University of…
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New Eleni Epstein image
I just found this new image of Washington Star fashion editor Eleni Epstein at her desk. It is available here. I am working on a revise-and-resubmit about Eleni and her influence on newspaper fashion reporting.
A website devoted to the history of newspaper women's pages
