Florida Conference of Historians

I just presented the paper, "Beverley Brink Morales Geary Badhorse: Trailblazing Journalist and Advocate," at the Florida Conference of Historians in Lake City. It has taken many years to put together Beverley's story. In this paper, I largely focused on her Florida years at the Sun Sentinel. I hope to put together a journal manuscript that focuses on all of Beverley's newspaper work.

Florida Writers Conference & Food Writing

Today I went to a session at the Florida Writers Conference presented by former Orlando Sentinel restaurant critic Scott Joseph. He spoke about his role in his newspaper's food section - content that originated in the women's pages. His approach to food writing fits into what Lance and I have written about in the past when it came to St. Petersburg Times food critic Ruth Gray.

Setting the Table

I am reading this book as I work on a conference paper about New York Times food editor Jane Nickerson. I was pleased to see that she is referenced in  the index of the book, although once again she is completely overshadowed by the NY Times food editor who came after her, Craig Claiborne.

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day! The most romantic story of all women's page editors is the marriage of Vivian and Curtis Castleberry - who have been married more than five decades and raised five daughters. I am finishing my work on my manuscript about the wonderful Vivian who was the longtime women's page editor at the Dallas Times Herald.

Translating Fashion to Newspaper Readers

In its coverage of New York Fashion Week, the Washington Post is publishing a daily feature about translating runway fashion to a Washington readership. Here is one of the features.

Lance and I are working on a revise-and-resubmit about Washington Star fashion editor Eleni Epstein. She spent her career translating fashion news from runways to her newspaper readers.

Fashion publicist Ruth Finley

Fashion week began yesterday in New York City. The shows were attended twice a year by newspaper fashion editors - who worked in the women's pages of newspapers. These writers translated the elaborate runway fashions for their readers back home - such as Eleni Epstein in Washington, D.C., Barbara Cloud in Pittsburgh and Aileen Ryan in Milwaukee. Their lives were made easier by Ruth Finley, who is pictured below.

The Wall Street Journal featured an article about Ruth today. Here is a little about her and the calendar she create, which is shown below:
"The concept of a fashion-events calendar came in 1943. Ms. Finley, then a 16-year-old reporter for the women's pages of the Boston Herald, overheard ladies lamenting a conflict for two fashion shows in Manhattan. "They complained that they couldn't be in the same place at once," Ms. Finley recalled. "And so I knew I had a niche creating this calendar."

Food Critic & Ethics

Romensko featured a great post about the food critic at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and ethics. Here is a link.

Lance and I are researching and writing about ethics and food journalism. This is a great example of how ethics played a bigger part in the coverage of food than previously thought.

Janet Chusmir publication

I just got the news that my article about Miami Herald editor Janet Chusmir(who began her career as a women's page journalist) is going to be published. “You Can’t Hug a Newspaper”: Janet Chusmir and the Miami Herald,” will be published this month in the FCH Annals: Journal of the Florida Conference of Historians, February 2012. I also learned that the article is a finalist for the Thomas M. Campbell prize for best article. I am also working on an article about Janet and her role as a "first" in female newspaper management.

Fashion Publicist Eleanor Lambert

In my work on Pittsburgh fashion editor Barbara Cloud, I came across the name of fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert. In an email interview, Cloud remembered about Eleanor Lambert: “She made fashion newsworthy and gave editors access to designers like we never had before.” Thanks to Lambert, Cloud visited the homes of designers. Cloud wrote: “We got good stories and I guess we were courted but I never thought of it like that. I shared all of that with readers. I took them along with me as I covered the scene.” Here are images of Lambert:

Here is the link to her obituary. From the article: "Eleanor Lambert, whose tireless promotion of American fashion gave the industry an international presence and helped to elevate it from rag trade to respectability, died yesterday at her home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. She was 100. Often referred to as the Empress of Seventh Avenue, Miss Lambert looked the part with her trademark turbans and outsize jewelry. Her barrage of news releases and enthusiastic work as a publicity agent did much to further the careers of numerous American designers, among them Norman Norell, Bill Blass, Oscar de la Renta and Anne Klein. Lambert, who founded the Council of Fashion Designers of America in 1962 and ran it for more than a decade, had an almost unerring eye for recognizing future stars: Halston was one of them."

I plan to look into Lambert's relationship with newspaper fashion editors.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel recipe testing

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has posted a story about how it tests recipes, following up on the earlier Washington Post story. Here is the story.
From the article, answering the question about testing recipes:
"Here's the longer answer: We consistently test recipes from local sources (home cooks, chefs and anyone else) as well as recipes from, say, websites or cookbooks that we have the least suspicion might not work exactly as written.
We test some columnists' recipes - notably, Sandy D'Amato's for his Kitchen Technician feature in Entrée (mainly to be sure they translate well to a home kitchen).
Most newspapers I know test at least some of the recipes they publish. The processes vary widely, and only a few have a test kitchen on the premises. The process we follow here was in place at The Milwaukee Journal long before I became a food writer there in 1981.
Testers consist primarily of Journal Sentinel staff members (present and former), not all on the food team. Recipes are tested in our home kitchens using our equipment. None of us is a home economist or trained chef - we're home cooks just like you.
We approach each recipe skeptically, asking several key questions as we cook: Is each ingredient listed in the recipe used in the directions? Is each ingredient called for in the directions, listed? Do amounts match up - for example, do 8 ounces of onions really yield 1 cup chopped?
Are cooking times and temperatures included, and do they work out? (Cooking or baking times are commonly tweaked after testing.) Are the proportions of ingredients correct for what's intended? Is there enough (or too much) frosting, sauce, marinade, etc.?"
Decades ago, the Milwaukee Journal - like several other newspapers including the Chicago Tribune and the NY Times - had its own testing kitchen. Here is a link to a reference about the Milwaukee kitchen.
Testing kitchens were a significant part of food sections - usually run by home economists.