Oveta Culp Hobby was an American government official and businesswoman who served as the first United States secretary of health, education, and welfare from 1953 to 1955. A member of the Republican Party, Hobby was the second woman ever to serve in a presidential cabinet.
The Women's Army Corps (WAC) was the women's branch of the United States Army. It was created as an auxiliary unit, the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) on 15 May 1942 and converted to an active duty status in the Army of the United States as the WAC on 1 July 1943. Its first director was Colonel Oveta Culp Hobby. The WAC was disbanded in 1978, and all units were integrated with male units.
Edith Rogers was an American social welfare volunteer and politician who served as a Republican in the United States Congress. She was the first woman elected to Congress from Massachusetts. Until 2012, she was the longest serving Congresswoman and was the longest serving female Representative until 2018. In her 35 years in the House of Representatives she was a powerful voice for veterans and sponsored seminal legislation, including the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, which provided educational and financial benefits for veterans returning home from World War II, the 1942 bill that created the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), and the 1943 bill that created the Women's Army Corps (WAC). She was also instrumental in bringing federal appropriations to her constituency, Massachusetts's 5th congressional district. Her love and devotion to veterans and their complex needs upon returning to civilian life is represented by the Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital in Bedford Massachusetts that is named in her honor.
Marguerite Higgins Hall was an American reporter and war correspondent. Higgins covered World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, and in the process advanced the cause of equal access for female war correspondents. She had a long career with the New York Herald Tribune (1942–1963), and later, as a syndicated columnist for Newsday (1963–1965). She was the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for Foreign Correspondence awarded in 1951 for her coverage of the Korean War.
Ethel Lois Payne was an American journalist, editor, and foreign correspondent. Known as the "First Lady of the Black Press," she fulfilled many roles over her career, including columnist, commentator, lecturer, and freelance writer. She combined advocacy with journalism as she reported on the Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s and 1960s. Her perspective as an African American woman informed her work, and she became known for asking questions others dared not ask.
Going to Meet the Man, published in 1965, is a collection of eight short stories by American writer James Baldwin. The book, dedicated "for Beauford Delaney", covers many topics related to anti-Black racism in American society, as well as African-American–Jewish relations, childhood, the creative process, criminal justice, drug addiction, family relationships, jazz, lynching, sexuality, and white supremacy.
Women in journalism are individuals who participate in journalism. As journalism became a profession, women were restricted by custom from access to journalism occupations, and faced significant discrimination within the profession. Nevertheless, women operated as editors, reporters, sports analysts and journalists even before the 1890s in some countries as far back as the 18th-century.
Pauline Frederick was an American journalist in newspapers, radio and television, as well as co-author of a book in 1941 and sole author of a book in 1967. in her nearly 50-year career, she covered numerous stories ranging from politics and articles of particular interest to women to military conflicts, and public interest pieces. Her career extended from the 1930s until 1981; she is considered one of the pioneering women in journalism.
Nadeane Walker Anderson, known professionally by her maiden name Nadeane Walker, was an American journalist, foreign correspondent and former fashion editor for the Associated Press.
Ruth Schwartz Cowan is an American historian of science, technology and medicine noted for her research on the history of human and medical genetics, as well as on the history of household technologies. She is also the author of a widely used textbook on the social history of American technology.
Colonel Martha Westray Battle Long, more commonly known as Westray Battle Long, was the second director of the Women's Army Corps and an early recipient of the Legion of Merit. Before entering the service, Long worked in her first husband's insurance agency and in various government agencies. She is best known for her service during World War II, which included serving on the staff of General Dwight D. Eisenhower. During her military service her name was Westray Battle Boyce.
Elizabeth Clow Peer Jansson, often just Liz Peer, was a pioneering American journalist who worked for Newsweek from 1958 until her death in 1984. She began her career at Newsweek as a copy girl, at a time when opportunities for women were limited. Osborn Elliott promoted her to writer in 1962; two years later she would be dispatched to Paris as Newsweek's first female foreign correspondent.
Ruth Muskrat Bronson was a Cherokee poet, educator and Indian rights activist. After completing her education, Bronson became the first Guidance and Placement Officer of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. She served as executive secretary for the National Congress of American Indians, which was founded in 1944, and created their legislative news service.
Marjorie Paxson was an American newspaper journalist, editor, and publisher during an era in American history when the women's liberation movement was setting milestones by tackling the barriers of discrimination in the media workplace. Paxson graduated from the University of Missouri School of Journalism in 1944, and began her newspaper career in Nebraska during World War II, covering hard news for wire services. In the 1960s, Paxson worked as assistant editor under Marie Anderson for the women's page of the Miami Herald which, in the 1950s, was considered one of the top women's sections in the United States. From 1963 to 1967, she was president of Theta Sigma Phi, a sorority that evolved into the Association for Women in Communications (AWC). She won the organization's Lifetime Achievement Award and was inducted into its hall of fame. In 1969, she earned a Penney-Missouri award for her work as editor of the women's page in the St. Petersburg Times.
Frances Keegan Marquis was an American women's army captain, World War II veteran, and feminist activist. In 1943, she became the first commander of a women's expeditionary force, the 149th WAAC Post Headquarters Company, which served in General Eisenhower's North African headquarters. Before her military service, she held management posts in women's organizations; afterwards, she did volunteer work for women's groups, including serving as a United Nations observer for Altrusa International.
Tina Susman is an American journalist and editor. A senior editor at Time from 2019-2022, she was previously the national editor for BuzzFeed News and while at the Los Angeles Times had multiple roles, starting as Baghdad bureau chief and moving on to become a national correspondent based in New York. Prior to that she oversaw and contributed coverage from at least 15 countries in Africa for the Associated Press and Newsday, part of the over-five-fold trend in the increase of women war correspondents from 1970 to 1992. She left Time in 2022 and was a senior editor at the tech news site Protocol.com until its closure in December 2022. While reporting for the Associated Press in 1994, Susman was kidnapped in Somalia and held for 20 days. For this, she was featured in an episode of Oprah and on MSNBC among other outlets, and her case became the subject of debate about whether the Associated Press should have withheld news of the kidnapping.
Bess Furman Armstrong was an American journalist. She covered the White House during five presidential administrations, as a reporter for the Associated Press from 1929 to 1936, then as a correspondent for The New York Times from 1943 to 1961. Her close relationship with Eleanor Roosevelt shaped her career as she reported on Roosevelt's political activities, unprecedented for a First Lady. During the 1960s, Furman was the top public affairs official in the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
Beth Campbell Short was an American journalist. She was a reporter for the Springfield Leader and The Daily Oklahoman, before joining the Associated Press as a correspondent in its Washington, D.C. bureau. While there, she covered the First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, and met her future husband, Joseph Short, a fellow reporter at the paper and later press secretary for President Harry S. Truman. She was appointed as Truman's correspondence secretary in 1952, a position she held until 1953 when the presidential administration changed. She was the publicity director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and press secretary for Senator Mike Monroney.
Barbara Wace was a British journalist. She worked for the Foreign Office in Berlin and Washington, D.C., joining the British Information Service during the 1940s. She became a journalist for the Associated Press (AP), covering the Allied invasion in France as the first British female reporter to report on the invasion following D-Day. After the end of World War II, Wace travelled around the world as a freelancer for a number of publications, including National Geographic, The Manchester Guardian and The New York Times.
Inez Early Robb was an American journalist and war correspondent. During the height of her career, she was a household name and one of the highest paid female reporters by 1938, writing a syndicated column that was carried by 140 newspapers.
