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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
- Anne Rowe, Beverley Morales, Edee Greene, Florida history, Florida newspapers, Florida Women's Pages, Gloria Biggs, Janet Chusmir, Marie Anderson
Importance of Women & Regional History
I am in the middle of reviewing Eileen M. Wirth’s book From Society Page to Front Page: Nebraska Women in Journalism for an Iowa history journal. It is an important book and I enjoyed her closing messages: “I had no idea how many women of achievement in journalism and other fields have been overlooked even in state and regional histories where they might be expected to appear.” (p 163) Further, she wrote “We cannot understand the history of women in the United States unless we consider local and regional dimensions because family obligations have limited the geographic and career mobility of the vast majority of American women.” (pg 164) Her…
- Florida food, Florida newspapers, Florida Women's Pages, food editors, food journalism, Jeanne Voltz, Lowis Carlton, Virginia Heffington
1960s Miami Herald Food Editor Lowis Carlton
Yesterday, I came across a new food editor: Lowis Carlton. I discovered her name in a cookbook I recently bought, Famous Florida Recipes. She had a bachelor’s and master’s degree in English from the University of Miami. She also had a bachelor’s degree in home economics from Florida International University. Like many of the top newspaper food editors of the 1950s and 1960s, she earned a Vesta Award and was a judge for the Pillsbury Bake-Off. She appears to have been the Miami Herald food editor after Jeanne Voltz left for the Los Angeles Times in 1960. By the late 1960s, the Miami Herald food editor was Virginia Heffington.
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Brand Names & Food Journalism
In his industry article attacking food editors, Richard Karp wrote that he found four or five articles in The New York Times, out of the numerous articles he examined published over the course of a decade, included brand names in recipes. His accusation is that the use of the brand names was a form of advertising – a violation of journalism’s standards. According to an academic study of newspaper food journalists, editors may have depended on public relations materials for information “they were not spoon-fed by business.” The study’s author noted that newspapers had policies that forbid the use of brand names in recipes. Instead, food editors had a list…
- food editors, food history, food journalism, Jane Nickerson, journalism history, women's page history
More About Jane Nickerson & Journalism History
The creation of the 1950s New York food community likely began with Jane Nickerson at the New York Times. She was the first food editor at the newspaper, beginning in 1942. Over the years, she introduced James Beard to the A.P.’s Cecily Brownstone. Those two were often dinner companions along with Nickerson and her husband. It was Brownstone who introduced the New York food community to Irma S. Rombauer, author of the popular cookbook Joy of Cooking. Later, it was Beard who introduced Julia Child to the food community. Yet, in another example of marginalization, Nickerson rarely get the credit in historical culinary stories. Instead, she has been overshadowed by…
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Food Studies Presentation: Ohio Food Editor History
A website devoted to the history of newspaper women's pages
