Whitt explores the lives of women reporters who achieved significant historical recognition, such as Ida Tarbell and Ida Wells-Barnett. Investigating the often blurry boundary between journalism and literature, she explains how this fluid distinction has actually limited how many scholars perceive the contributions of authors such as Joan Didion and Susan Orlean. Whitt also highlights the work of important novelists, including Willa Cather, Katherine Anne Porter, and Eudora Welty, to shed light on how their work as journalists informed their highly successful fiction.
This study also offers a survey of contributions women have made to the alternative presses, including the environmental press and civil rights activism. Whitt examines important figures in the early feminist press such as Caroline Churchill, editor and reporter for Denver's Queen Bee, and Betty Wilkins of Kansas City's Call. Finally, through newsletters, newspapers, magazines, and journals, she traces the history of the lesbian press and points out the ways in which it indicates that the alternative press is thriving.
|Acknowledgments ixIntroduction: The Secret Sharers: Women Outside Mainstream Journalism xi
1. Familiar Women of American Journalism History 1
2. Women of Society News and Women's Pages 37
3. Women in Contemporary American Literary Journalism 62
4. Women Journalists Who Chose Fiction 87
5. Representative Women of the Alternative Press 107
6. The Lesbian Press 146
Conclusion 167
Notes 171
Works Cited 177
Index 187| "Whitt writes with clarity and conviction. . . . Highly recommended."—Choice
"A readable and comprehensive book on a subject that does need updating. Women in American Journalism makes an interesting contribution to the field and will be well read and appreciated by those interested in journalism history, women's studies, and journalism in general."—Marilyn S. Greenwald, author of A Woman of the Times: Journalism, Feminism, and the Career of Charlotte Curtis
|Jan Whitt is an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and the author of Allegory and the Modern Southern Novel.