Roxcy Bolton

The other Florida woman on am working on for my book on Florida women’s page editors is feminist Roxcy Bolton – who often worked with Marie Anderson to raise awareness.

Bolton helped establish Florida's National Organization for Women, served as charter president of the Miami Chapter and later the National Vice President in 1969. She founded Women in Distress, to provide emergency housing, rescue service and multi-discipline assistance to women in situations of personal crisis.

In 1974 she helped establish the Rape Treatment Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. That same year Bolton organized Florida's first Crime Watch meeting to help stem crime against women.

There are great documents and photos about Roxcy online. One of my favorites is part of the Florida Memory Project.

Helen Muir

I’m in the process of making revisions to my book on Florida women’s page editors. This week I am working on telling the story of Florida journalist and library advocate Helen Muir.

Born in Yonkers, New York, Muir moved to Miami in 1934. She was a columnist for the Universal Service syndicate from 1935 to 1938, and after marriage and motherhood, continued writing for the Miami News and the Miami Herald until 1965.

But, likely her greatest love was libraries. She chaired the State Library Advisory Council and was instrumental in organizing the Miami-Dade Library System. Like many women in Florida, she was instrumental in helping establish the foundation of her community. She also wrote several books.

Helen was a good friend of environmentalist Marjory Stoneman Douglas, as well as Miami women’s page journalists Marie Anderson and Dorothy Jurney.

She wrote a memoir, Baby Grace Sees the Cow: A Memoir, and her oral history is part of the Society of Woman Geographer. Her papers are at the University of Miami. I hope to go through them this fall.

Carol Sutton interview with Mary Bobo

My article about Louisville women's page editor, and later managing editor, Carol Sutton has been revised and resubmitted to a national journalism history journal.

Carol was one of Time's Women of the Year when she became the first female managing editor of a metro daily. That's her in the bottom right corner in yellow. The photo was taken on the balcony of a hotel in Mexico.


Here's chance to hear from Carol Sutton:
http://www.archive.org/details/CarolSuttonInterviewWithMaryBobo

Florida & the Equal Rights Amendment

I have completed an article about the fight in the 1970s to pass the Equal Rights Amendment in Florida. I am focusing on Florida media coverage, especially that of Florida State Senator Lori Wilson, pictured in this post. Wilson was married to Gannett newspaper executive Al Neuharth, a real champion for women. Al promoted women's page journalists Gloria Biggs and Marj Paxson into executive positions in later years.

UPDATE: The article has been accepted.

Award

My article about Vivian Castleberry that appeared in the Spring 2007 issue of Southwestern Historical Quarterly won first place in the research category from the Illinois Woman’s Press Association.

It went on to the national competition and the article was just named first place from the National Federation of Press Women, Inc.

I am currently working on a book about Vivian.

This is my earlier post on Vivian.

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Catherine East

Betty Friedan described Catherine East as “the midwife to the contemporary
women’s movement.” East spent many years working for the federal government, and it was from this position that much of East’s invaluable data and progressive thinking helped forward women’s positions in society. As a staff member on the President Kennedy Commission on the Status of Women, East saw the degree of discrimination women faced nationwide, and she became a feminist.

She held senior posts with every presidential advisory commission on the status of women from 1962 to 1977. East was also one of the architects of the strategy to bring the Equal Rights Amendment out of committee and to passage in House of Representatives.

East’s force often went unnoted, so much so that friends called her “Deep Throat.”

Part of East’s work involved interactions with newspapers’ women’s page editors to spread the message of feminism; this was most visible in her partnership with leading women’s page editor Dorothy Jurney in the project “New Direction for News.” This project involved examining various newspapers for their coverage of women’s issues. The study results found a lack of explanation of women’s issues - and led to the cartoon in this post. The papers for this project are at the WHMC.

I am going through East’s papers for the second time at the Schlesinger Library at Harvard this week. I appreciate the University sponsoring the research trip.

Dorothy Roe Lewis

Dorothy Roe was born in 1905 in Alba, Missouri. She graduated from the Missouri School of Journalism in 1924 and soon began her career as a reporter in El Dorado, Arkansas. It was a weekly newspaper that soon became a daily paper. Roe described it as an ideal first job in the booming city. She wrote for both morning and evening editions, covering police, courts and oil field exposes. She also sold advertising and wrote a shopping column.

She then joined the Los Angeles Examiner. During her brief time there, she wrote, sold and illustrated a shopping column. Missing her journalism experiences, she moved on to Chicago to write Sunday features for the Hearst morning newspaper. She soon worked for the Universal Service in New York. For the first six years, she wrote for the national desk. Most frequently, she covered murder trials and kidnappings.

In 1941, she joined the Associated Press in New York. She wrote that she found women’s page journalism, “surprisingly exciting, after her long experience in the more lurid phases of straight news reporting.” She also noted, “hemlines often make headlines” and she was able to do pioneering work on women’s news. She was the main women’s editor for the Associated Press for 19 years. In 1959, she earned the Missouri Honor Medal. She later taught at the Missouri School of Journalism.

Her papers are at the Western Historical Manuscript Collection. I have done some initial collecting of her papers and plan to begin drafting her story next fall.

Here's a link to one of her stories.

Milwaukee Press Club

The Milwaukee Press Club is the oldest continuously operating press club in the United States. For a majority of its history, membership was restricted to men. Beginning in 1966, women journalists began their five-year fight for inclusion.

The women’s picket signs read “Our Sex Edited Out,” “Way Past Deadline” and “Oldest and Most Archaic” as they marched in front of the Milwaukee Press Club building at 125 E. Wells Street on September 19, 1966.

The Milwaukee women journalists issued a press release to express their frustrations: “When the spittoons were thrown out of news offices long ago, you forgot to get rid of another archaic practice. Our picketing today is to remind you that you are not addressing yourself to this problem and that it is time to act.”

In the summer of 1971, after the ACLU threatened a lawsuit, women were allowed to become members.

My story about the women’s battle will be published in an upcoming issue of the Wisconsin Magazine of History. (Lance Speere is the co-author.) Most of the material came from the archives at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The article features women's page editor Aileen Ryan, mentioned in an earlier post.

Vera Glaser (also shown as a guest on Meet the Press)

Vera Glaser was a Washington, DC-based wire services reporter whose work typically ran in the women’s pages in the 1960s. She made a significant difference in the coverage of the women’s liberation movement.

Vera Glaser was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. She was interested in journalism in high school. On the weekends she would visit the newsrooms of the local newspapers, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and St. Louis Globe-Democrat. She graduated from high school first in her class. That position typically meant a scholarship to Washington University. Instead, the honor went to a male who had only been at the school for a year. Decades later, she recalled the snub, writing that experience, plus some workplace discrimination, turned her into “a fighting feminist.”

She married Herbert R. Glaser, an administrative officer with National Labor Relations Board, and in 1947, she gave birth to a daughter, Carol. After a variety of writing and public relations work in 1950s, she became a reporter for the North American Newspaper Alliance in the 1960s. She was one of the first women to be a Washington bureau chief. She had regular interaction with many of the women at the Miami Herald, the newspaper that eventually syndicated her column. She was a good friend of Marie Anderson, mentioned in an earlier post.

In 1971, she was elected the president of the Washington Press Club. (The Washington Press Club was created in 1919 by women journalists, as women were not allowed to be members of the National Press Club.) She was the first president to oversee the Club as men were allowed to become members. The two clubs merged in 1985.

She was a member of President Nixon’s Task Force on Women’s Rights and Responsibilities from 1969 to 1970. This followed a press conference question to Nixon about the lack of women in government. This moment is part of an oral history project.

Together, Vera Glaser and Malvina Stephenson wrote the syndicated "Offbeat Washington" column. Malvina's papers are at the Western Historical Manuscript Collection.

I have gone through Vera's papers at the University of Wyoming. I plan to write about her partnership with longtime government employee Catherine East. I will be going through Catherine East's papers next week at the Schlesinger Library. I am grateful to the Library for funding this work.

Edee Greene

Edee Greene was a Penney-Missouri award-winning Florida women’s page editor. Her section included progressive content that tackled important social issues in Fort Lauderdale.

A Florida resident since the age of 12, she began her media career with radio station WSUN in St. Petersburg in 1932. She wrote soap opera scripts and had her own movie show. A year later, she married Tom Greene. She left radio to take care of her family and working for her husband’s advertising business. It was a miserable marriage, she says. It ended after 17 years, leaving her financially and emotionally drained. She was a single mother with three children.

She worked for the women’s pages at the Orlando Sentinel from 1950 to 1957. In 1955, she married her second husband, Joe Rukenbrod, a fellow reporter at The Orlando Sentinel.

Her big moment came in 1957 when she became the women’s editor and columnist at the Fort Lauderdale News – Rukenbrod joined her at the News. (Her witty column, “AhMen,” was a popular column for 17 years.) She won several Penney-Missouri Awards for her progressive content. Her groundbreaking approach led to a full-page article in Editor & Publisher in the 1960s. She remained at the News until 1976.

Because of her urging, the Women in Distress program began a domestic violence center, a school for the deaf was expanded, and Meals on Wheels improved the lives of the homebound. She was good friends with Marie Anderson, Marj Paxson and Maggie Savoy - mentioned in earlier posts.

She was named to the Broward County Women Hall of Fame.

Here's a link to an article describing Edee as a nationally known editor.

Map of Progressive Women's Page Editors, 1950-1975

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20th Anniversary of the National Women in the Media Collection

Gloria Biggs

Gloria Biggs was another Florida women’s page editor who won numerous Penney-Missouri Awards. Here is an article about her. In 1966, after a difficult experience as women’s page editor at the St. Petersburg Times, Biggs became the head of women’s sections for the Gannett newspaper company in Florida. According to Gannett head Al Neuharth: “Having someone of your proven ability and high caliber run the women’s show simply adds to the insurance policy for success.” In 1973, she was promoted to publisher of the Melbourne Times – the first woman named publisher among the Gannett Company’s 53 daily newspapers.

But in reality, Biggs’ new position was really just a title – she did not have true authority. As publisher, she could not make final decisions. Instead, she had to report to male publisher of the Cocoa Beach Today. This was revealed in a 1974 Editor & Publisher article abut Christy Bulkeley who was named publisher of the Gannett newspaper, the Times-Union in Rochester, New York. The article revealed that: “Technically, Bulkeley is the first woman to be put in full control of a Gannett Group newspaper.” In retrospect, it would make sense that Biggs would not be given full control because she lacked experience. Women’s page editors rarely had budgetary nor personnel control.

Ultimately, Biggs was moved into a special projects coordinator at the Gannet headquarters. In January 1978, Biggs wrote to Marie Anderson: “my professional life is somewhat drifting. If you have that same feeling about yourself, we should put our heads together. Gad, what a powerhouse we could be.” In later years, Biggs edited a Handbook for Caribbean Journalists during her work with the World Press Freedom Committee, which was headed by George Beebe, who had been an editor of the Miami Herald.

The Columbia Missourian did a package on women journalists that included Gloria.

Jeanne Voltz

One of the common elements of women's pages were the food sections. One of the top food editors in the 1950s and 1960s was Jeanne Voltz.

Voltz was born in Collinsville, Alabama. She went to school at the Alabama College for Women and began a career in journalism in 1940 in Birmingham when few women were in the field. She was self-educated about food and was a fan of barbeque well before it became popular. In the 1950s, she was food editor at the Miami Herald. The newspaper had a large food section each Thursday. Dorothy Jurney, who was known as the godmother of the progressive women’s sections, was overseeing Voltz’s section as the time. Jurney said of Voltz: “A very good newspaper woman—food or otherwise.”

Miami Herald colleague Marjorie Paxson, who went on to become the fourth female publisher at Gannett, said of Voltz, “Our food editor, Jeanne Voltz, was just marvelous, and I've still got some recipes that I’ve saved of hers. She had a very practical approach but at the same time she knew the food field and was very good.”

Then, in the 1960s, Voltz became the food editor at the Los Angeles Times. She was a six-time winner of the Vesta Award for newspaper food editing and writing. She went on to become food editor of Woman's Day in New York in 1973. Voltz was founding members of the New York chapter of Les Dames d'Escoffier, a professional organization for women in food-related careers. It was created because there was no organization devoted to women in the food and wine industry which was largely dominated by men. Voltz was president of the organization from 1985 to 1987 and helped it expand. She wrote numerous cookbooks.

Married with two children, Voltz noted that she initially played a supporting role to her barbecuing husband. She wrote, “In the fifties all husbands barbecued, with wives as chief assistants and errand girls.”(She would go on to write on of the most significant cookbook on barbecue years later.) She soon increased her role in front of the grill, noting that “a woman can barbecue as well as a man." As society was changing, Votlz guided two of the most significant food sections in the country. An analysis of her work the Los Angeles Times, show that women’s pages were laying the foundation for food journalism years before the supposed surge in the topic. It also shows that food journalism can tell much about society at that time.

I am in the process of analyzing Voltz's work at the Los Angeles Times.

Betty Preston Oiler

Betty Preston Oiler went from an award-winning women's page editor to a publisher during her career in Glendale, California. A Michigan native, she graduated from Petoskey High School and attended Michigan State College (now Michigan State University). She graduated in 1941 with a degree in journalism. She was taught by the chair of the journalism program Albert Applegate who had a daughter, Roberta, near Preston’s age. Roberta Applegate (mentioned in an earlier post) would also go on to be a significant women’s page journalist. She said: “My dad was extremely supportive of women who were highly ambitious.”

After moving to California to be with her parents and escape the snowy winters, Preston made an impression on Glendale News-Press Publisher Carroll Parcher. He later noted, “We didn’t exactly have a job open at the time but something told me this girl was too good to let get away.”She quickly became editor of the women’s page and made her mark on it. Former News-Press reporter Avery Keener Econome noted, “The woman was really a pioneer in progressing those old-fashioned society sections into real feature sections that appealed to both sexes and all age groups. Times were changing and she wanted to be on top of that.”

She won four Penney-Missouri Awards in the 1960s and also attended the API sessions for women's page editors. After the elimination of her section, she went on to be a city editor, managing editor and executive editor.

I am collecting data on Oiler - going through microfiche of her sections. I also interviewed her step-daughter who was VERY helpful. I plan to begin drafting an article this summer for a state history journal.

Judy Lunn

Judy Lunn was the fashion editor of the Houston Post - one of the four "fs" of the women's pages. Fashion was part of her family’s history. Her grandfather was a furrier. Her aunt was a lingerie designer who created a trousseau for Elizabeth Taylor when she married Eddie Fisher and a maternity gown for Lucille Ball.

Lunn won her first writing award at age nine for a story on fire prevention. And while she had a knack for writing, it was fashion that caught her interest. She graduated a year early from Hunter High School in New York City. She attended the Rhode Island School of Design to study fashion design. (She liked to draw and design but hated to sew.) In college she met her husband, Robert, who was a student at Brown University.

They relocated to Houston in 1968 and she took time off to be a stay-at-home mother for her two daughters, Linda and Susan. It was her daughter, Linda, who led to the post of fashion writer. In hopes of earning some change, she knocked on a neighbor’s door with an offer to recite the Pledge of Allegiance for a quarter. That neighbor was the fashion editor of the Houston Post, Lynn Van Deusen. She asked to meet the mother of the precocious child and her fashion journalism began in 1971. Lunn developed the Fashion Today section for the Post and won many national fashion prizes with that section, including a Penney-Missouri Award.

She was not fazed by the celebrity of fashion although she had met the big names. She traveled to the major fashion markets twice a year, every year. She met Estee Lauder and Karl Lagerfeld. She was in the home of Coco Chanel. She visited with Bob Mackie when he visited Houston and Galveston. She had strong opinions about fashion. She believed that Tommy Hilfiger was a non-designer, instead just a smart marketer. She believed that when Versace died, the magic died with him. She loved Armani.

In 1992, she received the first George A. Hough III Award for Overall Superiority in Reporting on the Apparel Industry, a lifetime achievement award. She remained at the Houston Post until 1995, when the Houston Chronicle bought the Post and shut it down. Lunn's sudden death came from a reaction to a common insect bite in 2003.

I have just started collecting her articles and got some wonderful information from her daughters.

Maggie Savoy

Maggie Savoy was an award-winning women's page journalist who started her career in Phoenix in the 1950s after earning a degree from the University of Southern California. She attended the influential API meeting for women's pages editors along with Marie Anderson, Vivian Castleberry and Marjorie Paxson. In the 1960s, she won three Penney-Missouri Awards while the women's page editor of the Arizona Republic.

After marrying journalist Jim Bellows, she moved to New York and worked for the Associated Press. When Jim became an editor at the Los Angeles Times, she followed him back west and worked for the United Press. She eventually became the women's page editor of the Times in the late 1960s, as it was transitioning into a lifestyle section. She was an outspoken feminist in these years. Sadly, she died of cancer in December 1970.

Her papers are not located anywhere but Jim had a memorial book published with tributes to Maggie. Many of her letters back and forth to Paul Myhre are available in the Penney-Missouri Papers at the Western Historical Manuscript collection. (Myhre was the director of the program.)

I am currently revising an article about Maggie's life, focusing on her Los Angeles years.

Eleni Epstein

Eleni Epstein was the fashion editor of the Washington Star for more than three decades. She was a native of Washington, D.C. who attended George Washington University and Columbia University. During World War II she began her journalism career as a copy assistant at the Washington Star and was promoted to the position of fashion editor at age 21. Her internationally syndicated articles covered the fashion markets of Milan, Paris, Hong Kong, Tokyo and London. Her position as fashion editor lasted more than 35 years until 1981 when the Star ceased publication. She received many awards for her interpretive writing and her contributions to the fashion industry. In 1960 she was the recipient of the first Penney-Missouri fashion writing award. She was married to Star

editor Sid Epstein.

Her papers are at the Western Historical Manuscript Collection at the University of Missouri.

I have gone through her papers and am revising an article about Eleni.

I was interviewed about Eleni for an article in the Columbia Missourian.

Colleen "Koky" Dishon

Colleen "Koky" Dishon was a groundbreaking journalist. She started her career covering hard news for the Associated Press during World War II. After the war, she was a progressive women's page editor in Columbus, Ohio, and Milwaukee before moving on to Chicago. She was hired by the Chicago Tribune in 1975 and in 1982, Dishon was named associate editor, becaming the first woman listed in the Chicago Tribune's masthead.

At the Tribune, Dishon created 17 special sections that were often quickly copied at newspapers across the country. In the words of Tribune Managing Editor Ann Marie Lipinski: “Whether you have ever worked for Koky, or ever heard her name before today, if you are a newspaper reader, you are the beneficiary of her genius. She defined modern features coverage with her work in Chicago, creating the so-called ‘sectional revolution’ in American newspapers.”

According to former Chicago Tribune newspaper executive Jim Squires, “For someone just 5 feet tall, Koky Dishon was as close as you can come to being a giant in journalism. At one point, she could have been the most influential woman in journalism.” In 2001, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from International Women’s Media Foundation.

For those wondering, it was her older sister who, in an attempt to pronounce “Colleen,” introduced the nickname “Koky,” which would last her lifetime.

I presented a paper on Koky at the fall 2007 American Journalism Historians Association convention. An article about Koky is under peer review at a state history magazine.

Joan Younger Dickinson

Joan Younger Dickinson joined the United Press in New York City in 1939 – as the first full-time female reporter in the wire service’s history. During her tenure, she cover the arrival of the Duchess of Windsor to the Bahamas and she was one of five reporters who followed Madame Chiang on her two-month coast-to-coast tour of America. She went on to the Ladies Home Journal in 1946. She wrote monthly newsfeatures for the public affairs department. She also wrote several of the "How America Lives" profiles.

I have an article about Joan under review at a state history journal. It is based on a talk I gave about Joan at the Popular Culture Association Conference this Spring. Material about Joan came from her personal and professional papers at the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming, as well as interviews with her daughters.

I appreciate the American Heritage Center funding the travel to go through Joan's papers.

Ruthe Deskin

Ruthe Deskin was an influential Las Vegas journalist. After working as a women's page journalist in Reno, she came to the Las Vegas Sun in June 1954 as the Sunday Editor. She remained at the newspaper for decades. Much of that time she served as an assistant to the flamboyant publisher Hank Greenspun. She did a little of everything in this position, including a regular column. Deskin died in February 2004 and was writing columns up until her death. She was a stabling influence for Greenspun, who was a powerful force.

I presented a paper on Ruthe at the spring 2007 Popular Culture Association convention in Boston. My article about Ruthe is under review at a state history journal. Much of my information for the article came from Ruthe's personal papers at UNLV.

An elementary school in Las Vegas is named for Ruthe.

Here is more information about Ruthe
http://www.onlinenevada.org/ruthe_deskin

I appreciate a SIUE Funded University Research funds to travel to UNLV.

Bobbi McCallum

Bobbi McCallum was the youngest woman to earn a Penney-Missouri reporting award in 1968 when she was 25 years old. Her five-part series in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer was about young, pregnant women: “Unwed Mothers – The Price They Pay.” In it, McCallum examined the lives of women who faced social stigma. She interviewed teens, hippies, career women and African American women.

Sadly, she died the following year during a medical procedure. The beautiful young journalist was riding the second wave of the women’s movement. It was a tragic accident that prevented her from reaching her promising potential. She had a short career – but she made the most of it.

I am currently revising an article on Bobbi for a resubmit to a Washington history magazine.

A scholarship for women journalism students is given out in her name.

The fountain in front of the newspaper's building, Moon Song, was created as a memorial for Bobbi.

Dorothy Jurney (also shown with Marie Anderson)

Dorothy Jurney was known as the godmother of the transformation of the women's pages in the nation's newspapers. Jean Gaddy Wilson, a scholar of journalism, has said that Dorothy Jurney "single-handedly changed American newspapers" by changing the women's pages. She was included in the Washington Press Club Foundation's oral history project "Women in Journalism."

My article about Dorothy is being revised for a resubmission to a nation journalism history journal. Much of my information for the article came from her papers at the Western Historical Manuscript Collection at the University of Missouri.

Dorothy was inducted in to the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors' Hall of Fame.

She is also in the Medill Hall of Achievement.

Carol Sutton

Carol Sutton was a groundbreaking women's page journalist at the Louisville Courier-Journal in the 1960s. She became the first woman managing editor of a major metropolitan newspaper, the Courier-Journal, from 1974-1976. During her tenure, the newspaper won Sigma Delta Chi and Roy Howard awards for public service for coverage of school desegregation in Louisville. She was a winner of a Penney-Missouri Award. She was one of several women named Time magazine's people of the year in 1975. She died in 1985 at a young age.

My article about her has been revised and resubmitted to a national journalism history journal and will come out in Winter 2010.

She is in the Kentucky Hall of Fame.