Women and Newspapering
When it comes to journalism history, women were nearly non-existent for decades. In 1977, journalism historian Marion Marzolf wrote the book Up From the Footnote.1 As the title indicated, when the few women were included in the stories of newspapers, they were typically found in the footnotes. Even when it comes to newspapersâ own histories, women also get short shrift. The 2003 book Orange Journalism highlighted several significant Florida women but not womenâs page journalists other than a brief reference to Anne Rowe at the St. Petersburg Times.2 Like many stories of women in journalism history during this time period, it was usually the woman who reached a management position or became an investigative journalist that caused her to have historical significance. Rarely do women who wrote for womenâs pages get historical acclaim. Yet, in the post-World War II era, womenâs page journalists were worthy of study. They were winning national awards and creating a new direction for content being copied across the country.
The positions of womenâs page editors, in terms of stature, at their newspapers varied. Some women were more respectedâusually if a male editor understood. Examples of these men include
James Bellows,
Lee Hills, and J. Edward Murray. Yet, there were many more men who did not understand or, at least, were not enlightened. Decades later, when asked if the well-respected and typically progressive Florida newspaper
St. Petersburg Times (now the
Tampa Bay Times) was ahead of its time in treatment of or regard for women in the 1960s, newspaper executive David Lawrence responded:
Well, I would say yes, but not so far ahead of that time that it was a world-beater. There were people there who were women who had substantive responsibilities, but for many years their responsibilities were very much connected, most of them, to womenâs news, softer kinds of things. A very smart woman named Anne Rowe, later Anne Rowe-Goldman , was in charge of the womenâs and feature sections. She clearly could have been editor of the paper. The whole business was sort of shabby on the subject. Women made distinctly less, had lesser jobs, and did not have much of a path to get more responsibility and more money.3
Women are most likely to be included in journalism history if they make it to the front pages of newspapers, cover sports, or become wartime correspondentsâwhen they dare to take on menâs turf.4 When specialized reporting is studied, it is usually a matter of politics, business, or sports. For decades, the womenâs pages of newspapers were largely ignored. Until the 1970s, most women journalists were restricted to womenâs sections other than those who briefly served as stunt girls, who raced around the world, and sob sisters, who covered heart-wrenching trials.5 A few women covered First Lady Eleanor Rooseveltâs women-only press conferences beginning in the 1930s. Other than during wartime did a token few women leave the womenâs section. They were rarely part of newsrooms at most metropolitan newspapers. Yet, in the years between World War II and the beginnings of the womenâs liberation movement in the late 1960s, many womenâs page journalists were also redefining womenâs roles. While men dominated the news and sports positions, the soft news beats were a place for women to find their niche.
For much of the scholarship on journalism history, the story of womenâs pages has been consistently defined with a broad stroke, described as the four Fs of family, fashion, food, and furnishings. The womenâs pages were also the place to find high society news, advice columns, and wedding information. More often, the term fluff was applied to womenâs page material. Yet, the sections were rarely examined to see if there was more to it. Recent scholarship has begun to shine a light on the women who covered soft news.6 The truth is more complicated as many womenâs pages had long been refining roles for women.7
Reporter Susan Paynter said that her work in Seattle demonstrated how womenâs page news was evolving by the 1960s. âThe womenâs pages became, really, the center of social-issues reporting,â she said. âThe news side wasnât doing it at all.â She said that by the time the news side realized they had been scooped by the womenâs pages, âIt was too late, because the ball was in our court and we were running with it.â8 The Seattle newspaper was not alone in these changes. By the late 1960s, the womenâs pages of the Charlotte Observer were covering the social stigma of syphilis and life inside a womenâs prison. The Detroit Free Press covered prostitution in the cityâincluding ranking those who just wanted a free meal to those who exchanged services for drugs. The womenâs pages of the New York newspaper Newsday included 13 ways to avoid a child molester.9
It is easy to simplify the content of the womenâs pages rather than examine the complexity of the material. In looking at the womenâs sections, there was some fluff and undoubtedly some of the material reinforced womenâs role in the private sphere. Yet, there were also stories of career women and community development by clubwomen. Just as Joanne Meyerowitz re-examined the original source material used to support Betty Friedanâs thesis in The Feminine Mystique and came to a different conclusion,10 womenâs pages should be looked at with fresh eyes. It has been shown that there were progressive womenâs sections throughout the 1960s, as various newspapers won Penney-Missouri Awards, the pre-eminent annual national award competition for womenâs page journalists sponsored by the University of Missouri. The content of these sections was a mix of the traditional as well as progressive news.
Primary-source material and growing scholarship have demonstrated that there was likely more value to the womenâs pages of the 1950s and 1960s than previously thought. It most visibly began with the Washington Press Club Foundationâs oral history project âWomen in Journalism.â11 The four womenâs page editors interviewed for the project told stories about including progressive articles in their sections prior to the Womenâs Liberation Movement in the 1960s. The interviews also showed that there was a womenâs page community with similar approaches to progressive content. Retirement stories and obituaries showed that many womenâs page editors had rejected the traditional model and explored the changing roles for women. Later studies revealed that several womenâs page journalists were working to update their sections in post-World War II years before the sections were eliminated in the 1970s.12
Impact of World War II
In fact, it was likely World War II that led to the changes that were obvious more than two decades later. During this time, women were taking on manâs work, most visibly represented by Rosie the Riveter. In one 1943 Tampa Tribune cartoon, a woman is shown sitting on a bed looking at her husband, who was in front of a mirror and wearing a welding-mask. The caption read, âStop admiring yourself and take it off, Otis; I have to get ready for work.â13 Across the country, women were taking on new roles, holding positions previously denied to them based on their gender.
The lack of men meant that women journalists had new opportunities. For example, Roberta Applegate covered hard news for a wire service during the war and was then the first woman to cover the Michigan capitol for the Associated Press. In another example, Betty Ewing had the chance to interview with the wire service United Press. The United Press employed 100 women during wartime, or 20 percent of its staff.14 The man doing the hiring was a Texan and, with their native connection, Ewing began covering Atlanta. While there, Ewing became the first woman to invade the male sanctuary of the...
