Pittsburgh fashion editor Barbara Cloud

I just came upon Barbara Cloud - the now retired fashion editor several Pennsylvania newspapers, including the now-defunct Pittsburgh Press and the Post-Gazette. Most women's pages included a fashion editor.

In a magazine profile she said:“Not being schooled in fashion writing,” says Cloud—who would later serve as fashion editor of The Pittsburgh Press for 33 years—“possibly allowed me to open up with more personal observations. That’s what I found interesting. When I want to share a story with readers, I begin to write as if I am writing a letter to a friend and I want them to know what or who I have just seen.” And Cloud has seen and has interviewed some amazingly interesting people—everyone from Joan Crawford and Nancy Reagan to Smokey Burgess and Ralph Lauren."

She is in the Pittsburgh Fashion Week Hall of Fame.



I just ordered her book, By Line. I am putting together a list of significant fashion editors that will include Cloud.

End of the NYT's Minimalist

Here is a story about the end of the New York Times food column, the Minimalist. It is a nice history of the section and the changing coverage of food. Here is a brief summary:

"The Minimalist first appeared on Sept. 17, 1997. It was the brainchild of Rick Flaste, who created the Dining In/Dining Out section (now the Dining section); Trish Hall, my on-and-off editor; and me. It was conceived as a successor to Pierre Franey’s classic 60-Minute Gourmet column, but with a less French, more modern, less chef-y sensibility. In addition, Rick wanted the recipes to be “smart,” and although I couldn’t quite figure out what that meant, I tried to please him."

The New York Times has a history of having men cover the food beat after the initial work of Jane Nickerson in the women's pages. The first male food writer was Craig Claiborne who began in 1957. He also invented the restaurant review as it is known today —part of a four-star rating system based on multiple visits to an establishment under an assumed name.

The Wednesday Five: Over 50 and Still in High Heels, ELLE Lightens a Beauty Queen, And a Lost Voice at Salon | Women's Voices For Change

The Wednesday Five: Over 50 and Still in High Heels, ELLE Lightens a Beauty Queen, And a Lost Voice at Salon | Women's Voices For Change

The second post mentions the end of Broadsheet and my commentary on it.

A Strange Stirring

I just finished reading Stephanie Coontz's book A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s. It is basically a biography of Betty Friedan's book and the impact it had. Here is a Q-and-A with the author.

I liked the re-examination of the book - she provides a nice historical context of marriage and women's roles. Her use of interviews with those who read the book during the early 1960s.

What was missing was the role that newspaper's women's pages played. Coontz cites women's magazines and their reviews. According to memos and letters from Friedan's papers, she requested that her book be reviewed in the women's pages of newspapers rather than in the book section. This was because she knew she was more likely to get a good review there. Friedan's mother had been a women's page editor in Illinois.

The women's pages of newspapers played a significant role in the popularity of the Feminine Mystique. Yet so much scholarship is devoted to women's magazines of the 1950s and 1960s.

Early food newspaper journalist Clementine Paddleford

Louise Raggio Has Died

It is sad to see that Dallas lawyer Louise Raggio has died. Here is her obituary. In it:
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison praised Ms. Raggio’s life and work.
“Louise Raggio was a trailblazer, an excellent lawyer, and one of the most fair people I have ever met,” Ms. Hutchison said. “She truly had a kind heart and contributed enormously to our state.”

Longtime friend Virginia Whitehill of Dallas said that for years she has told women’s gatherings, “Louise Raggio is the most important woman alive in the state of Texas.”
“And I stand by that,” she said.

This is from an editorial about Louise:
There was never was an “aha” moment in Dallas lawyer Louise Ballerstedt Raggio’s life when she knew her calling was to fight for women’s rights. It was more like a cumulative set of experiences, she once said, that gradually made her realize that if things were ever going to change, she had to make it happen. The changes she initiated probably will endure for generations to come. She died Sunday at age 91.
Ms. Raggio is perhaps most famous as the principal force behind the Marital Property Act of 1967, which reversed decades of antiquated state laws that overtly discriminated against women.

Though a contemporary of outspoken women’s-rights activists such as Betty Freidan and Bella Abzug, Ms. Raggio “could not afford to be identified with the women’s movement here,” said her longtime friend, Virginia Whitehill. Ms. Raggio preferred a less confrontational strategy, mindful of conservative Texan sensibilities.

I would say that Dallas Times Herald women's page editor Vivian Castleberry took the same approach to feminism - often working behind the scenes. Vivian and Louise were good friends - as two of the few professional, working mothers in Dallas

Interview with Lois Hagen's daughter

This week, I interviewed the daughter of Lois Hagen, Gwen Gilligan. Hagen was the longtime furnishings editor for the women's pages of the Milwaukee Journal. I am working on an article about Hagen and the importance of furnishings as one of the four Fs.



Hagen won numerous awards including the top prize for furnishings reporting - the Dawe Award. It was named for the late Milwaukee Journal furnishings reporter Dorothy Dawe.

Gwen was very helpful in filling in the details of her mother's career. Gwen said her mother liked to report about people not furniture. That was also the approach that Vivian Castleberry took when she was the furnishings reporter for the Dallas Times Herald.

The Women's Section - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

The Women's Section - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

A mention of my Ms. blog post on the Atlantic's blog.

Constance Daniell

In my research on Milwaukee Journal women's page journalists, I came across a new name yesterday: Constance Daniell.

I love the lead in her obituary. It sums up the career of so many of the women I have studied:

"Constance Daniell's career in journalism evolved just like the women's sections for which she wrote. She began with society reporting. Her work grew to include the full range of feature assignments."

She, like some many women in the 1960s, were both serious journalists and interesting characters. I liked this image of her:"I can still see her traipsing around the newsroom in a ball gown, filing a live report on debutante balls and the like."

I also found this amazing anecdote: "One story likely saved Daniell's own life.

In 1974, Daniell went to the old Milwaukee County General Hospital to write about the new mammogram technology. She underwent a mammogram herself, to better understand it and explain it to readers.

The results were not good.

Daniell gave the surgeon permission to do what he thought was necessary. She admitted that she was not afraid of dying. She was afraid of losing her breast - or, even worse, both breasts.

She wrote about what happened next. "Did they take the breast?" Daniell asked, coming to in the recovery room. The nurse nodded.

"How many?" she asked. "One," came the answer. "Good," Daniell replied. "Everything is relative," she later wrote."

Celebrating Barbara Mikulski

When Barbara Mikulski was sworn in for her fifth term last week, she will have served in the Senate for more time than the previous longest-serving female senator, Republican Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, who represented Maine for 24 years. She served until 1973.



I interviewed Sen. Mikulski for this story for the revived women's pages of the Chicago Tribune several years ago. What I loved about writing for the women's pages is that sources knew that my approach would be female-friendly.

Milwaukee Journal's women's pages

I am working on the fashion, food and furnishing stories in the women's pages of the Milwaukee Journal in the 1950s and 1960s. I came across an interesting quote from food writer Clarice Rowlands. In a profile of her - after winning an award - she is asked the question that tends to irritate many food writers: Does she cook? (Fashion writers hated to be asked if they sewed.) These women found it undermined their roles as journalists. After all, a sports journalist isn't asked if he played baseball.

This was Rowlands' 1961 response: "No, I am a reporter in the field and it is not any more necessary for me to prepare all the food I write about than it is for the paper's crime reporter to commit the crimes about which he writes."

Why Broadsheet’s Demise Isn’t Progress : Ms Magazine Blog

Why Broadsheet’s Demise Isn’t Progress : Ms Magazine Blog

In the 1970′s, women’s liberation movement leaders called for the end of the women’s pages, arguing that women’s news should be on the front pages and in the news sections. It was a great idea in theory but it failed in practice. Newspapers responded by replacing women’s pages with lifestyle or entertainment sections, but they didn’t increase coverage of women’s issues

Changes for the WHMC

It was sad to learn about the changes at the Western Historical Manuscript Collection at the University of Missouri - especially the loss of jobs for some of my favorite archivists. Here is the story.



It is this archive that holds the National Women and Media Collection. In it are the papers of women's page journalists Roberta Applegate, Marie Anderson, Gloria Biggs, Dorothy Jurney, Eleni Epstein and Marjorie Paxson - whose donation initiated the Collection. Lance and made numerous trips to the Ellis Library and count it as our favorite archive.

I worry that the marginalization of the WHMC will also marginalize the NWMC which will celebrate its 25th year in 2011. It certainly is not good news. I will always be grateful to the archivists who helped us tell the stories of so many important women. In particular, I am thankful that that the papers of the Penney-Missouri Awards were processed last year. It is a great resource for women's page research.

Florida History Conference & Janet Chusmir

I just learned my paper “You Can’t Hug a Newspaper”: Janet Chusmir, the Miami Herald and Newspaper Management," has been accepted for presentation at the Florida Conference of Historians. The title is a quote from Janet. The Conference is in Fort Lauderdale in April.

For years, women in newspaper management had few role models. If they were mentored it was by a man. Many of these managers were hard-hitting, tough-talking men. Those first female leaders rarely had families – there was no career path. Then came Janet Chusmir. She was the exception. After earning a journalism degree and raising a family, she entered the workforce. After a few years as a reporter, she rose through the ranks to become the executive editor of the Miami Herald. She achieved success before dying suddenly of a brain aneurysm at age 60.

Janet Chusmir was one of the first women to lead a U.S. newspaper. When she was named executive editor in December of 1987, about 85 percent of top newspaper editors were men, according to the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Of that group of 1,000 members, only 80 were female. As a trailblazer, her career was significant for two reasons. First, she took a new career path compared to other women before her. Second, she was an advocate for women and minorities in journalism. Unlike the rhetoric of some women who claimed that the news was the same regardless of gender and the management was not influenced by being female, she said she managed differently. As Chusmir’s friend and famed journalist Tad Bartimus wrote, “Every woman who has a ‘first’ label attached her name walks in the steps of countless foremothers.”

Kay Mills Has Died

I was saddened to hear of the sudden death of pioneering journalist and author Kay Mills.

She wrote the most significant book about women in journalism. It's called A Place in the News: From the Women's Pages to the Front Pages. It was my first knowledge of women's pages and changed the course of my research agenda.

According to her obit: "Mills was driven to write "A Place in the News" because, she told the New York Times some years ago, "I was trying to sort out why this profession I cared so much about really didn't return the favor for women — and I might add, minorities — for such a long time." She believed that broadening newspaper staffs beyond "the same old interchangeable races running America's newsrooms" would improve coverage."

We exchanged a few emails. I am glad I got to tell her how much her work meant to me.

Thank You, Justice Scalia, for Helping Revive the ERA : Ms Magazine Blog

Thank You, Justice Scalia, for Helping Revive the ERA : Ms Magazine Blog

End of a present day women's page

I was sad to hear about the end of the online women's page, the Salon's Broadsheet.

Some critics have complained that these female-oriented online publications marginalize women’s news and that topics important to women should be part of the mainstream news. That the same argument that silenced the women’s pages of newspapers in the late 1960s and the early 1970s. In their place came lifestyle and entertainment sections instead.

I am writing a response to the end of Broadsheet for the Ms. blog.

Assassination Attempt

The attempted assassination attempt on Congresswoman Giffords reminded me of the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas.

Dallas Times Herald Vivian Castleberry allowed her seventh-grade daughter, Cathy, to stay home from school to watch the president drive through the city. Cathy had pled with her parents to allow her to skip school. She later noted, that Kennedy was a hero among her peers. They were impressed that Cathy would get to see the president. Cathy helped her mother prepare to meet Jacqueline Kennedy by reading newspaper clips in the car on the way to work.

After a visit to a coffee shop, Cathy went to the library to wait for the motorcade. She did homework until 11 a.m. as people started to line up. She found her spot the curb among the excited crowd. The sun out briefly as the car passed by as people cheered. Years later, she recalled hearing a loud noise as she returned to the library.

She then got on the bus to go to school. On the bus, she overheard a man say, “Have you heard President Kennedy was shot?” She recalled thinking it was a joke. Then a second person repeated the news. A man said that Kennedy “got what he deserved.” Cathy remembered thinking that she wanted to punch the man. Most people looked shocked.

When she got to school, she asked the woman at the front desk, “Does assassinate mean what I think it means?” Cathy remembered thinking that assassinate was a word that belonged to history – not something that would happen in the current day

Arizona women's page editor Elizabeth Shaw

I just noticed this story about Elizabeth Shaw, who was a women's page editor in Arizona in the 1940s before a successful publishing career.

This is what the reporter wrote about Shaw's work as the women's page editor at the Arizona Daily Star in the 1940:
J.C. Martin, retired Star books editor, said Shaw was ahead of her time as a working mother and a journalist.

"I tend to think that good writing began to be valued in newspapers in about the '50s and '60s and Liz was there in the 1940s raising the standards of writing."
Martin credits Shaw for subtly changing the mix of stories on the women's pages. When Shaw began working at the Star, a gossip column competed for space with wedding and engagement news. Shaw sought to "put an emphasis on substance" during her seven years at the newspaper.

"There were still weddings and still engagements and still gossip, but it was sort of on the back burner by the time Liz left, and I thought that was kind of an interesting shift in content," Martin said. "She certainly understood women's interests and activities were changing and emphasized that in the pages of the Star - that women could do something more than make it to the altar."

What is interesting is how early Shaw was doing this. Most journalism histories give credit to the Washington Post in 1968. Yet, time and again, I have discovered newspapers across the country that made changes much earlier.

Old newspaper comic book

In 1949, the Minneapolis Star and Tribune produced a comic book to commemorate the opening of the newspapers' new building on Portland Ave. in Minneapolis. It has been scanned and is available online.

Of the many positions at the newspaper, women are only featured three times - interviewing Miss America, a travel writer and the food editor. All three positions were likely in the women's pages. It is interesting to see the position of food editor in 1949 - it is unclear exactly when these positions were established on the news side.

Women's Liberation Movement

I have written about the favorable coverage that women's page editors gave women's liberation leaders and issues. That was not the case in other sections of the newspapers. Take for example, the above article from the city section of the Dallas Times Herald in 1972.

This is the lead: “Jaquie Davison, a voluptuous blonde mother of six from Atlanta, says pox on bra-burning ‘women libbers.’” Hill then quotes the woman while again describing her appearance, “My role as a wife and mother is being attacked. Man is divinely ordained to be leader of the home, and things should stay that way,” said “the blonde, brown-eyed Mrs. Davison said.” The woman was in Dallas to speak in her role as the founder of HOW (Happiness of Women) which opposed women’s liberation. The reporter also noted her “tight- fitting blouse” and the fact that Davison enjoys being a “sex object.”

It is difficult to believe the self-described feminist and Times Herald women's page editor Vivian Castleberry would have allowed that kind of coverage.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia proves the ERA is needed

Many people were shocked by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's recently released statements about the U.S. Constitution not protecting women. More specifically, he said that the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not protect against discrimination on the basis of gender or sexual orientation, according to a newly published interview in the legal magazine California Lawyer. This has been a hot topic in the news and on social networking sites. The most common response labels the justice as a sexist but it is not that simple.

His interpretation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment is hardly a new one. It is the reason that activists and lawmakers have been fighting for the Equal Rights Amendment – because women are not a part of the Constitution. The E.R.A. is rather simple. Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

Why does this matter now? Because the E.R.A. could still be ratified, based on a new legal strategy that needs three more states to ratify. My home state of Florida has chance to ratify the amendment will come up again this Spring. Rep. Evan Jenne (D-Broward), said in a press release: “I am proud to be a part of this historical, yet timely effort in Florida to ratify the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.” Florida Senator Nan Rich (D-Broward, Miami-Dade) is the new Senate Sponsor of the E.R.A. bill.



Do you live in an unratified state? If so, contract your lawmaker! It is an issue that several women's page editors believed in.

Food critics in the women's pages

The Los Angeles Times published an interesting piece in its food section yesterday. This is the lead:"Well, that was interesting. A couple of days before Christmas, one of the owners of the new Beverly Hills restaurant Red Medicine created a firestorm by confronting Times restaurant critic S. Irene Virbila while she was waiting for a table, snapping her picture, kicking her and her party out of the restaurant and then posting the picture on the Internet for all to see.

By the next morning, more than 15 years of working to remain anonymous were ruined."

Typically, food critics remain anonymous. (These reviews were found in the women's pages.) Here are the food critics guidelines from the Association of Food Journalists. The organization was created in the 1970s to reinforce ethics in food reporting. Its first president was Peggy Daum - the food editor of the Milwaukee Journal.

Often, the food editor of the women's page was also the restaurant critic. One example was Ruth Gray.


Caption: Picnicking atop the Bayfront Tower are from left, rear table, Malcolm and Ruth Gray, Stanley Brezic and Patricia Robinson and (front table) Marian Coe Brezic and June and Dick Bothwell.February 1975.

Ruth Gray was the food editor and the restaurant critic for the St. Petersburg Times. She wore hats and scarves and ducked inside the ladies room to take notes and stay inconspicuous, according to her obit.

Some restaurants had her photo on the wall in the kitchen. One server called her by name, saying the meal was on the house. She didn't write the review.

One unlucky restaurant named its crab sandwich after her.

Gray may have been in disguise yet her name was well known. This is what she wrote when she retired: "On Feb. 28 Ruth Gray retired after 12 years as the St. Petersburg Times restaurant critic.

``Oh, did I wake you up?`` (Yes, she did.) ``I just have one little question to ask. Aunt Bessie is coming for a visit, and what restaurant would you suggest for us?`` (How about Bob's Greasy Spoon, lady?)

That's how it is when you write a restaurant column. The questions are sure to come no matter where you are. At work, at parties, at department stores (when they see your credit card and your name) and even doctors' offices. I once found myself confined to a hospital for a few days, and during a delicate diagnostic procedure the doctor asked me about restaurants. Next time I'll send him a bill."

Exploring the role of family

We are back from our vacation on Anna Maria Island - our favorite Florida getaway. While there, I did some reading about limited scholarship on newspapers and the coverage of family. (Family is one of the supposed four F's of the women's pages.)



I recently found this 1914 pamphlet about taking care of babies. It was issued by the Department of Labor, Children's Bureau. It was quite controversial at the time as some people were offended that the government was getting involved in family life. Here is a 1947 article about that pamphlet.

What I am learning is that there is much less coverage of family - other than advice columns - compared to fashion, furnishings and food coverage.