More Stories of Women Journalists
I’ve heard from a number of you that you enjoyed the stories of women foreign correspondents that I posted over the last two months. Some of you shared your own experiences as journalists in the 1970s and 1980s–remarkably similar to those of women reporters in the 1930s and 1940s, alas. More than one of you suggested that any one of the women whose stories I shared would be worth a book in her own right.*. Since so many of you were interested, I think it is time to share a book that I think many of you will enjoy.
Undaunted: How Women Changed American Journalism by Brooke Kroeger is not an encyclopedic listing of women journalists over the last 180 years.** Instead, it is, using her own word, a representative account of women who held meaningful positions in American newsrooms, beginning with Margaret Fuller in the 1840s and ending with the reporters who launched the #MeToo movement with their investigative reporting in the early 2020s. The book is full of intriguing accomplished women, many of whom are largely forgotten. More importantly, it traces what Kroeger describes as a recurring theme that continues into the modern day of “progress followed by setback.”
The book is fascinating, occasionally infuriating (because of the subject, not because of Kroeger’s writing), and overall a delight to read. If you’re interested in women’s history, journalism or, obviously, women journalists, this one’s for you.
*That might be true, but I won’t be the one writing those books. Even if the sources exist, which may not be the case, I’m ready to move on from journalists to something else. I don’t know what, but I most likely will be writing about a tough broad whom we need to know more about.
**And a good thing, too. Such books, whether they look at women journalists or women warriors, are useful, but not much fun to read.
It’s Publication Day for The Dragon From Chicago!
On May 8, 2020, I announced here on the Margins, after months of hinting, that I had a contract with Beacon Press for a new book about Sigrid Schultz, Berlin bureau chief for the Chicago Tribune. I expected to finish the book in two years. *Cue manic laughter*
Four years and a bit later, The Dragon from Chicago is finally out in the world.*
I’ve spent the last four years deep in the world of foreign correspondents, American newspapers. Weimar Germany, “false news,” glass ceilings, American isolationism, Nazis, the Lost Generation, the rise of radio news, daily life in Berlin, and the challenges of getting the news out in the face of tightening controls over the press. I’ve learned a lot in the process, and I’ve tried to share it with you every step of the way, from big stories like the rise of the Weimar Republic to small ones, like my realization that Oscar Mayer, of wiener fame, was a real human being.
Thanks for your support and encouragement along the way. It kept me going on the days when I wasn’t sure anyone would care.
You’ve already received the information that I’m throwing an on-line launch celebration tonight**, in conversation of Olivia Meikle, co-host of the What’s Her Name Podcast. If you’ve already signed-up, you’ll get the Zoom link today. (It may already be in your in-box.) If you didn’t sign up and wish you had, here’s the link:
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87516374458?pwd=UGaOsk76MUIm5PcMF8JtuBN4muZgsa.1
Meeting ID: 875 1637 4458
Passcode: Party
Starting Friday, we’ll be back to business as usual here on the Margins, with some stories that didn’t make it into the book, some Road Trip Through History adventures, and reviews of books that I hope you’ll enjoy as much as I have. There’s never a lack of history to share!
*If you literally see it out in the world, take a picture and share it with me! Or better yet, share it in your social media feeds.
**Assuming you’re reading this on August 6
One Final Woman War Correspondent: Helen Kirkpatrick
American reporter Helen Kirkpatrick (1909-1997) had already spend five years as a foreign correspondent in Europe when America entered World War II.
She had stumbled into reporting in1 935. After a summer job escorting 30 teenage girls around Europe, she cabled her husband that she wasn’t coming back and found a job with the Foreign Policy Association in Geneva. The FPA was located near the press room in the League of Nation’s building. She not only made friends with reporters, she began covering for them when needed. After a time, the European office of the New York Herald Tribune offer her a job as a stringer with a regular, though very small, salary. She jumped at it.
In 1937, she moved to London, where she worked as a freelance contributor for a number of newspapers. During the Munich Crisis, she was a temporary diplomatic correspondent for the Sunday Times.
During her time in London, she published a weekly newsletter, along with Victor Gordon-Lennox of the Daily Telegraph and Graham Hutton of the Economist. Titled Whitehall News, it campaigned against the British government’s policy of appeasing dictators: Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden, and the King of Sweden were all subscribers. (I assume Neville “Peace in our time” Chamberlain was not.)
Shortly before the war she joined the London office of the Chicago Daily News, the owner of which had previously refused to hire women staff writers. Her first assignment was to get an interview with the Duke of Windsor, who was well known not to give interviews.* Despite the scoffing of her male colleagues, she was able to get a meeting with the former king. He reiterated that he did not give interviews, but saw no reason that he couldn’t interview her. That reverse interview was her first by-lined story in the paper
Kirkpatrick worked for the Chicago Daily News throughout the war. She wrote about the London Blitz, covered the arrival of the first troops of the American Expeditionary Force in Ireland, and spent six months reporting on the North African campaign in 1943, including the surrender of the Italian fleet at Malta. After D-Day, she became the first correspondent assigned to the Free French headquarters in Europe. She entered Paris on August 25 1944 riding in a tank with General Leclerc’s 2nd armored division. Her final wartime assignment was a trip to Hitler’s mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden—almost a required stop for American correspondents at the end of the war.
She was the only woman correspondent who received medals of valor from both the United States and the French governments for her war coverage.
She continued to work as a foreign correspondent for a few years after the war—working for the New York Post, which had taken over the Chicago Daily News. She then moved into the public sector, first as an information officer for the Marshall Plan office in Paris and then as the Public Affairs Office for the Western European Division of the State Department.
She gave up her career when she married Robbins Milbank in 1954. Not an unusual decision at the time, though a loss to journalism.
*This sounds to me like someone was setting her up to fail.
***
One short week until The Dragon From Chicago hits bookstore shelves. Am I excited? Darn tootin’ I’m excited!
Heads up to my Chicago people: The event on August 6 at City Lit Books has been cancelled.