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Did Feminism Kill Home Cooking?
Some critics have blamed feminism for the lack of home cooking today and the increased reliance on convenience food. (Isn’t it sad that feminism is blamed for so much and rarely given credit for what feminism helped women achieve.) Perhaps the most vocal of these was food writer Michael Pollan who wrote in a 2009 essay in the New York Times. He wrote that one of the reasons that women do not cook was that women went to work. In his New York Times essay, he also described Betty Friedan’s 1963 The Feminine Mystiqueas the book that taught millions of American women to regard housework, cooking included, as drudgery, indeed…
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Omaha Food Editor Maude Coons
Maude Charron Coons was the longtime food editor at the Omaha World-Herald. She graduated from the home economics program at Iowa State University after overcoming paralysis caused by polio, as noting in the story above. She started at the Omaha World-Herald as the household editor in 1936. She and her husband had relocated to Omaha in the hopes that either of them could find a job during a trying economic time. They were thrilled when they both found jobs. Initially, she wrote under the byline of “Mary Cooks.” By the 1940’s, she wrote under her own name. She wrote several food pamphlets and one cookbook. She was attending the annual food editors…
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Food Studies Presentation: Ohio Food Editor History
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Revised Women’s Page/Lifestyle Section
I was interested to see that a newspaper is revising its feature section with a nod to its 1960s women’s section, according to this article. The editors asked readers: “What do you wish was still part of The Chronicle?” The answer was: “Enhance Your Life Section.” The newspaper is creating a section called “Your Life.” It was described as “a cross between the Women’s sections of the 1960s and 1970s and the scratch-and-sniff ink on April Fools’ Day Lifestyle section of the 1980 and 1990s.” I was pleased to see a newspaper recognize the value of the 1960s women’s pages rather than dismissing them as fluff – which typically happens.
- Eleni Epstein, fashion history, fashion journalism, journalism history, Washington Star, women's page history
History Takes Time
It has been more than seven years since I first heard the name Eleni Epstein – the longtime fashion editor at the Washington Star. It was when Lance and I were going through papers of the National Women & Media Collection, then at the University of Missouri. Eleni kept everything so we had a lot to go through. We made at least six visits to archive to go through her papers during the years we lived in St. Louis. Over the years, I discovered additional material about Eleni at several archives including the New York Public Library – Lance and I visited the Library and went through the papers of…
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Food Journalism & Regional Cookery
Lance & I just learned that our paper “Regional Cookery: The Relationship Between Newspaper Food Editors Spanning the Public & Private Spheres” has been accepted for presentation at this year’s National Communication Association’s pre-conference: Our Place at the Table: Continuing the Conversation and Deepening the Connections between Food and Communication. In 2013, historians and culinary writers are just beginning to study food journalism. Until recently, most of what was documented about food journalism was limited to the New York Timesfood editor and restaurant critic Craig Claiborne. One notable exception is the book Hometown Appetites about the longtime New York Herald Tribune food reporter Clementine Paddleford, written by Kelly Alexander and…
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Beacon College Salon Series Talk
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Food Editor Nadine Bradley
I just found this great 1938 story about Nadine Bradley who was the food editor at the Omaha World-Herald. In the article, it is noted that Bradley had a degree from the University of Missouri and had already been a reporter for 13 years. More than 200,000 women read her column. The story was due to Bradley being in Miami with her husband for a visit. She likely hired Maude Coons who I wrote about in my book about food editors.
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Food Studies Presentation: Ohio Food Editor History
A website devoted to the history of newspaper women's pages
