Janet Chusmir

Janet Chusmir was a women's page journalist at the Miami Herald in the late 1960s who rose to the position of Executive Editor at the Herald. She died suddenly in 1990.

According to her obituary, "During her tenure she pushed the Herald to be more sensitive to ethnic and racial concerns, to think about how the events of the day affected real human beings, to publish a newspaper that, in her words, 'connects with the community.' As the newspaper's first executive editor, she also brought diversity to the newsroom by creating new opportunities for women and minorities."

This is from her own short autobiographical statement written when she won a 1972 Penney-Missouri Award: "I'm typical of women we often write about who launches a career after she has launched the kids. A native of Boston, Mass., I earned a degree in journalism from Boston University in June 1949, got married a week later and then took a 12 year hiatus to rear the children who give me some of my best story ideas."

Maggie Savoy Bellows

Miami Herald editor Lee Hills

I just found this photo of Lee Hills who Dorothy Jurney reported to at the Miami Herald in the 1950s. Dorothy later followed Lee to the Detroit Free Press in 1960. He was a champion of improving the content of women's sections. Here is more about Lee Hills.

In this photo, he is speaking at Journalism Week at the Missouri School of Journalism. A building at the School is named for Lee Hills. Several well known women's page editors graduated from the Missouri School of Journalism including Carol Sutton and Marjorie Paxson.

Dorothy Jurney

I just found this reference to Dorothy Jurney's parents. Her mother, Mary Zeola Hershey Misener was elected to the Indiana State Legislature in 1929. She is listed in A Biographical Directory of the Indiana General Assembly, Vol. 2. Mary Zeola Hershey Misener was born on Oct. 22, 1878 in Ohio. She attended Otterbein College for three years and graduated from King's School of Oratory in 1900. She married Dorothy's father in 1905.

This photo from the WHMC shows the newsroom of her father's newspaper, the Michigan City News.

This is an earlier post about Dorothy.

Roberta Applegate articles

I just found these articles by Miami Herald women's page journalist Roberta Applegate in the Florida Heritage Collection. The clip is in the papers of Gov. C. Farris Bryant scrapbook, folder 11, item 2.

This is an earlier post on Roberta. She was a "first" several times in journalism before becoming a journalism professor at Kansas State in the 1960s.

Paul Myhre

Paul Myhre was the director of the Penney-Missouri Awards program throughout the 1960s. This photo is from one of the workshops that were a part of the Awards. His letters at the Western Historical Manuscript Collection show that he was supportive of the women's page editors. He died in 1971. After a long search I have found the date he died and today I ordered his obituary. I plan to write an article about Paul's campaign to improve the status of women's pages.

Book Review

My review of the book Death Row Women: Murder, Justice and the New York Press, just came out in the journal American Journalism.

Marie Anderson's Father

I just came across the photo of a young Judge Robert H. Anderson, Marie's father. (Marie Anderson was the women's page editor of the Miami Herald in the 1950s and 1960s.) It seems to verify the couple in the earlier post are Marie's parents. He was a member of the circuit court in Miami.

This is the Who's Who entry for Judge Anderson. Marie is listed as his daughter.

This is another biographical entry for the Judge.

More about Marie Anderson

I have found references to images of Miami Herald women's page editor Marie Anderson in the Special Collections at the University of West Florida.

This image is in Marie's papers at the University of Missouri. I think these might be her parents.

Here is proof that Marie was a delegate to the National Women's Conference in 1977.

Here is a slide show of Marie Anderson.

This is my earlier post about Marie.

Women in American Journalism

Women in American Journalism: A New History by Jan Whitt is now out. (Published by the University of Illinois Press.) The book features a chapter about women's page editors, including Vivian Castleberry and Dorothy Jurney.

Florida Conference of Historians

My article about Edee Greene has been accepted for presentation at the Florida Conference of Historians in February 2009. Edee Greene was the women's page editor of the Fort Lauderdale News in the 1950s and 1960s. She won numerous Penney-Missouri Awards and was good friends with fellow Florida women's page editor Marj Paxson. Here is my earlier post on Marj.

I just found the obituary of Edee's father Henry Nielsen.

The obituary of Edee's brother proved that "Edee" was a nickname for Edith.

Druzella Goodwin Lytle

This week I discovered information on Druzella Lytle who won a second-place Penney-Missouri Award in 1962 and 1963 when she was the women's page editor at the Honolulu Advertiser. She was women's page editor at the newspaper from 1953 to 1969. This photo is of Druzella when she was a student at UCLA in the 1920s. I plan to write an article about Druzella and the women journalists she worked with in Hawaii.

Marie Anderson letter

These are letters that Miami Herald women's page editor Marie Anderson wrote to angry readers. (They can be found in her papers at the Western Historical Manuscript Collection.) Some historians have noted that women's page journalists had little power at their newspapers but this was not the case for several Florida women's page editors. Anderson often stood her ground to management, readers and advertisers.

Here is my earlier on post on Marie.

Jeanne Voltz in Miami

I am working on an article about food editor Jeanne Voltz. I will focus on her time in Los Angeles. This page is from Voltz's time in the women's page at the Miami Herald. Notice the headshot of Voltz. The food editor was often a local celebrity.