Anniversary of the Death of the Miami News

The last issue of the Miami News was published on December 31 in 1988. In the 1960s, it had one of the best women's pages around - headed by the wonderful Billie O'Day, who was also an accomplished musician and conductor. I hope to write more about Billie in 2012.

Happy 8th Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary to my wonderful husband and research partner Lance who knows as much about women's page history as I do. It has been a wonderful eight years.

Lance, Curtis & I are celebrating our anniversary and my birthday (tomorrow) in Boca Raton. The Penney-Missouri Award-winning women's page editor from Boca was Sandra Wesley who I have been lucky enough to exchange a few emails with over the years. Above is a photo of Sandra - she is on the far left. Betty Preston (Glendale, CA, women's page editor) is in the middle and Edee Greene (Fort Lauderdale women's page editor) is on the right.

Ruth Ellen Church's college years

Before Christmas, I received a wonderful package from the Parks Library at Iowa State University - where Chicago Tribune food editor Ruth Ellen Church earned her degree in home ec journalism. (She was in the class of 1933.)

The photo above is from the papers at Iowa State. Here is more about Ruth Ellen's cookbooks which are also there.

Here is one example of the many activities that Ruth Ellen was involved in while in college. I will blog about more of her college work next week as I work on a conference paper about Ruth Ellen's career.

My thanks to the wonderful librarians in the Park Library at Iowa State!

American Fashion & Virginia Pope

For Christmas, Lance got me this wonderful book, American Fashion. Included in the book are the names of two significant - but often overlooked - newspaper fashion editors: Eugenia Sheppard (of the New York Herald Tribune) and Virginia Pope (of the New York Times).

Above is an article by Pope that I found online. I also found this great article about Pope - fashion editor at the Times from 1933 to 1955. According to the article, her approach for fashion writing never changed: "Keep from getting monotonous, never too effervescent, and most important, it must be accurate."

Saving the Miami Herald Building

Yesterday, the Miami Herald featured this story about a preservation group's fight to save the Miami Herald Building.

Marie Anderson was the women's page editor of the Herald when the building opened in 1963. The Miami Herald had one of the top women's page sections in the country in the 1950s and 1960s. Journalists who wrote for the section at the time included: Roberta Applegate, Dorothy Jurney, Marjorie Paxson and Jeanne Voltz.

Food Editor Jane Nickerson's Yearbook

I came across the digitized yearbooks of Radcliffe University yesterday. This is the citation. Above is the 1938 yearbook page for senior Jane Nickerson who would go on to be the first food editor (in the women's pages) at the New York Times and went on to the food editor at the Lakeland Ledger in Florida.

So far, all of the food editors I have investigated have been college graduates which was unusual compared to journalists overall in the 1940s through the 1960s. Many of these women had degrees that were a mix of journalism and home economics.

Women's Page Journalists & Cooking

I bought a copy of this great 1955 cookbook a few weeks ago - it was co-edited by Washington Post women's page editor Marie Sauer who I blogged about last week. The cookbook was a fundraiser for the Women's National Press Club. (The National Press Club excluded women as members until 1971.)

There were more than 140 authors in the book, making the editor note: "This book may indeed include more famous bylines - over more exclusive copy - than any other volume in history. On page 38 are recipes for "Heavenly Hamburger" and "Cheese Wafers" by Henrietta Poynter - listed as the editor of Congressional Quarterly. She was also the wife of Nelson Poynter. Together, the put out the St. Petersburg Times - one of the best places to be a women's page editor.

My favorite part of the book is that each recipe included a story - often revealing and funny - by the journalist.

Katherine Graham, the Washington Post & Marie Sauer

I just received word that the Encyclopedia of the Sixties will be published at the end of the month. I wrote two entries for the Encyclopedia: one about Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham and one about the false myth of women burning their bras at the 1968 Miss America Pageant.

When it comes to women's page history, too much credit goes to the Washington Post as being the leader in transforming the women's pages into lifestyle sections. (The personal credit tends to go to editor Ben Bradlee not publisher Graham.)

I would argue that Washington Post women's page editor Marie Sauer was the true leader of women's page progress. In fact, she wanted to change the name to something more progressive in the 1950s but was turned down. The change to the Post's Style section was made upon her retirement. Here is the story about her leaving.