VI.

WOMAN IN JOURNALISM.

BY SUSAN E. DICKINSON.

The pioneer woman in American journalism was Mrs. Margaret Craper, of the _Massachusetts Gazette and News Letter_, in the years of the Revolutionary War. After her to the year 1837 must be referred the first entrance of any American woman into the field of active journalism. At that time Mrs. Ann S. Stephens accepted the duties of editorial writer and literary critic in the columns of the _New York Evening Express_. Her connection with that paper continued for thirty years, but after 1857 it was limited to the editorial pages by the press of exacting duties elsewhere. In the last named year Mrs. Elizabeth F. Ellet succeeded her as literary editor of the _Express_, sustaining well the reputation which Mrs. Stephens had gained for it of a just and high standard of criticism. But in the intervening twenty years other women had followed Mrs. Stephens’s lead, and made their mark in journalism with a freshness, a vigor, and a brilliance unsurpassed by any of the numerous later comers. During the thirties Mrs. Sarah Josepha Hale and the once famous Grimké sisters, Sarah and Angelina, availed themselves of the opportunities offered for special writing by New York and Philadelphia papers. In 1841 Mrs. Lydia Maria Child, one of the most widely known authors of the day, made her appearance in the arena of New York journalism as editor of the _Anti-Slavery Standard_, a weekly newspaper published by the American Anti-Slavery Society. Mrs. Child had already demonstrated her editorial ability in the establishment and conduct, for eight years, of the _Juvenile Miscellany_, the pioneer children’s magazine of America. For two years Mrs. Child conducted the _Standard_ alone; then, for six years more, in conjunction with her husband. But her best work during these years was done in 1842–’3–’4 as special New York correspondent for the _Boston Courier_, then edited by Joseph T. Buckingham. These weekly letters of hers, original, sparkling, thoughtful, vigorous, depicting the social, literary, musical, and dramatic life of the metropolis, were afterwards republished in two volumes, which hold a wonderful fascination still, when read after the lapse of more than a generation.

It was while Mrs. Child’s letters were forming one of the greatest attractions of the _Boston Courier_, in 1843, that Miss Cornelia Wells Walter took charge of the editorial columns of the _Boston Transcript_, doing her work as ably and faithfully as any of her masculine fellow journalists. And in the next year, 1844, Margaret Fuller, who in 1840 had founded, and for two years edited, that famous quarterly, the _Dial_, came from Boston to New York at the request of Horace Greeley to fill the position of literary editor of the _Tribune_. Here she set the standard of criticism at high-water mark, and made its literary notices famed for a discrimination, sincerity, justness, and fearlessness of judgment and utterance which contributed largely to the influence of the paper. In the summer of 1846, when she sailed for Europe, its review columns had in her hands attained a reputation which in after years the scholarly editing of Dr. Ripley did but sustain.

In the same year that saw the beginning of Mrs. Child’s brilliant letters from New York, the readers of the _Louisville Journal_ greeted the advent of another woman, Mrs. Jane G. Swisshelm, in letters and editorial contributions bearing the strong stamp of an earnest, aggressive, deeply thoughtful but vivacious mind, intense in its sympathies, ready to do battle against every form of wrong-doing, and gifted with a bright humor which winged the shafts she sent abroad with unfailing vigor. It was but a little while until she became also special correspondent for the _Spirit of Liberty_, issued at Pittsburgh. She speedily proved herself a worthy compeer of her Eastern sisters in the journalistic field. In 1848 she removed to Pittsburgh and established there the _Saturday Visitor_, a paper which grew rapidly into wide circulation and influence.

But before she had reached this point in her career, while in fact the fame of this Western worker was just beginning to be heard of in the seaboard cities, the reading public of those cities was startled into a fever of enthusiasm by the letters of a Western girl in Eastern papers, the _Home Journal_, the _Saturday Gazette_, the _Saturday Evening Post_, the _National Press_. It was in 1845 and ’46 that “Grace Greenwood” first took her place, while still a girl in her teens, as one of the most brilliant, clear-headed, and versatile of newspaper correspondents, in which special province, so far as journalistic work is concerned, she has elected to remain, with the exception of the few years, beginning with 1853, during which she published and edited the _Little Pilgrim_. Mrs. Swisshelm’s ambitions, on the contrary, led her always to prefer the active duties of editor and publisher. The _Saturday Visitor_ under her management was a power in the fields of political and social reform, of home duties and graces. She enlisted the services of other women for its departments. Chief among these helpers was Mrs. Frances D. Gage of Ohio, who became afterwards widely known as a charming writer for children, an earnest woman’s rights speaker, and contributor to the _New York Independent_. In 1856, after her connection with the _Visitor_ ceased, Mrs. Gage led the van of women journalists in her own State by becoming associate editor of an agricultural paper in Columbus, conducting its Home department with marked success. Mrs. Swisshelm, attracted in 1856 by what seemed a wider sphere for work in the new Northwest, sold her Pittsburgh paper and soon afterwards started, in Minnesota, the _St. Cloud Visitor_. In this she of course continued her advocacy of Free Soil and anti-slavery doctrines, and within a year her office was raided and her press destroyed by a mob. Fearlessly she gathered her resources together, and began the publication of the _St. Cloud Democrat_, in which she afresh demonstrated her ability, and in the campaign of 1860 supported Mr. Lincoln for the Presidency. After the close of the war she returned to the duties of active journalism; having, during the years of conflict, laid them aside to perform efficient service as a nurse “at the front.” Her vigorous pen until nearly the close of her life failed not to serve every cause in whose truth and justice she believed.

Near the same time at which Mrs. Swisshelm founded the _Pittsburgh Visitor_, Mrs. C. I. H. Nichols became the editor of the _Windham County Democrat_, a Whig paper published at Brattleboro, Vermont. This she conducted for many years with admirable success, her editorials being often widely copied. In 1851 “Gail Hamilton” made a brilliant dash into journalism as special contributor to the _National Era_, Dr. Bailey’s paper at Washington, for which Mrs. Stowe wrote “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” and Grace Greenwood did some of her best work. In 1854 the woman’s rights agitation, which had taken form several years before at the Seneca Falls Convention, and received a new impulse at the Worcester Convention of 1851, was reinforced by the appearance at Boston of a new paper, the _Una_, published and edited by Mrs. Paulina Wright Davis and Mrs. Caroline H. Dall. This failed of long life for want of pecuniary support, but it was energetically conducted while it lived, and is well worthy of remembrance as the pioneer woman suffrage paper of America. In 1855 Miss Antoinette Brown, afterwards Mrs. Blackwell, became for a time one of the special contributors to the _New York Tribune_. She devoted her writing to social and reformatory subjects, giving chief place therein to the bearing upon women of the vices and defects of our social system.

In any notice of American women in journalism it is needful to give thus, in somewhat broad detail, an account of the workers during those first twenty years, because of the wide influence which they wielded in behalf of noble living and high thinking, and the practical stimulus which they gave to work in the various lines of social reform.

After those twenty years were over, as the country became more widely and thickly settled, as newspapers multiplied and enlarged their departments, and called for an increasing staff of writers of varying abilities, women journalists also became more numerous, and began to take up special lines of correspondence and reportorial work. In 1856 Miss Cunningham, who soon after became Mrs. D. G. Croly, still better known as “Jennie June,” entered upon her journalistic career as a fashion writer, first on the _Sunday Despatch_, then on various other New York papers. In 1857 she invented the manifold or syndicate system of correspondence, supplying fashion items, gossip, and news of social topics and occurrences, simultaneously to newspapers all over the country. In this department of work her followers have multiplied until it would be hopeless to name or to count them. In 1860 she suggested the founding of _Demorest’s Illustrated Magazine of Fashions_, and edited it for twenty-seven years, during which time she not only maintained her syndicate work, but proved herself a good “all round” writer for the press, having held at different times a position on the staff of nearly all of the leading New York dailies. In the autumn of 1889 Mrs. Croly issued the first number of a weekly paper, _The Woman’s Cycle_, the aim and purpose of which are amply indicated by its title.

During the period of the Civil War and the few years immediately succeeding, the larger city papers began to avail themselves of the work of women as special writers, as correspondents, and reporters. The _New York Tribune_ numbered upon its editorial staff Mrs. Rebecca Harding Davis and Mrs. Lucia Gilbert Calhoun; Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton supplied it weekly with the literary, dramatic, and art news of Boston, and Miss Ellen Mackay Hutchinson began her work upon it as assistant to Dr. Ripley in its book review department. Miss Middie Morgan on the _Times_ has shown among journalists as thoroughly as Mlle. Rosa Bonheur has done among painters, that a woman may fill admirably any unusual place to which she is adapted by inclination and circumstance. Quite recently Miss A. L. Wilson has won a kindred success as manager and assistant editor of the San Francisco _Breeder and Sportsman_.

Of correspondents in this period, Mary Clemmer (then Mrs. Ames) was the first to become widely known. Her Washington letters to the _New York Independent_, and other papers, continued for a series of years to stand in the front rank of journalistic correspondence. Succeeding her come a long line whose names and work have become famed. Mrs. Burnham, afterward Mrs. Fiske, in the _Republican_ of St. Louis, later in various Chicago, Washington, and New York papers; Miss Anna M. H. Brewster, Mrs. Lucy H. Hooper, Mrs. John Sherwood, Miss Kate Field, are among those whose unmistakable gifts and conscientious work have won high place for themselves and opened the way for others.

The religious press, weekly and monthly, was not far behind its secular contemporaries in securing the aid of women as conductors of special departments. For the last thirty years there have been few or none of these that have not steadily numbered one or more women among their regular contributors.

No woman in New York had taken the editorial control of a paper after 1849, when Mrs. Child relinquished her place upon the _Standard_, until 1867 Miss Mary L. Booth took the charge, from its initial number, of _Harper’s Bazar_. Her reputation, earned as historian of New York and as a translator, had become a national one when in 1861, in a week’s time, she rendered accurately into brilliant English Gasparin’s famous “Uprising of a Great People.” It aided in drawing immediate popular attention to the new journal. How faithfully and admirably her editorial work was done for the remaining twenty-two years of her life has but recently been borne witness to over her grave.

In 1868, one year after the _Bazar_ was started, the lively agitation in favor of woman suffrage gave birth to the _Revolution_, of which Miss Susan B. Anthony was the publisher and Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton editor-in-chief. Two years later the _Woman’s Journal_ was started in Boston, with Mrs. Lucy Stone, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, and Mrs. Mary Livermore upon its editorial staff. If these two papers, and the by no means insignificant number which have arisen to follow their footsteps, have not as yet seen the accomplishment of their especial aim, they have served as potent factors in woman’s educational, industrial and social advancement, in helping to secure the repeal of unjust laws, and, if last named, by no means least, in awakening women to a sense of their solidarity as a sex—to the truth that “where one of the members suffers all the members suffer with it.”

In the mean time there were, both in the West and South, women who had demonstrated their ability and fitness for the profession of journalism. In New Orleans Mrs. E. J. Nicholson, first as coadjutor and then as successor to her husband, has for thirty years or more held editorial control of the _Picayune_, of which she is the chief owner. On her paper and on the _Times-Democrat_, also owned by a woman, women have for many years held responsible positions. In Assumption, the _Pioneer_ has, for a term second only to that of Mrs. Nicholson’s career, been owned and edited by Mrs. Susan Dupaty. Mrs. S. V. Kentzel has for fourteen years made her paper, the _St. Tammany Farmer_, of eminent practical value and importance to the agricultural and material interests of a large part of the State. Of later years there have been quite a number of additions to the list of women journalists of Louisiana, foremost among these being Miss Addie McGrath of the _Baton Rouge Truth_, who is one of the chief officers of the Press Association, and Mrs. M. L. Garner, owner and editor of the _Carroll Banner_ at Lake Providence; Mme. Marie Roussel is the editor of _Le Propagateur Catholique_ of New Orleans. A Woman’s National Press Association was formed at New Orleans in May, 1885. Two years later the addition of foreign members caused a change of name to the Woman’s International Press Association. Mrs. Nicholson is its President. Near the same time that Miss Booth assumed charge of _Harper’s Bazar_, Mrs. Mary E. Bryan entered upon the literary management of the _Sunny South_ at Atlanta, Georgia. She had served her apprenticeship to journalism as assistant editor upon an Atlanta paper, and had afterwards edited a political journal in Natchitoches. After ten years management of the _Sunny South_ she joined the corps of women editors in New York, taking charge of the _Fashion Bazar_ a dozen years ago. After Mrs. Bryan’s departure from Atlanta there seems to have been no other woman in that part of the South inspired with an ambition for newspaper work until Miss Andrews recently took a place upon the _Atlanta Constitution_. Texas has a number of women journalists, most of whom are new-comers in their profession; but one of them, Mrs. S. L. McPherson, in 1877, established and still edits and publishes at Sherman the _Daily Democrat_. For the two or three previous years her home had been in Caddo, Indian Territory, where she had aided her husband in publishing the _Oklahoma Star_. These ladies are all welcome members of the Texas Press Association. There are a number of recent indications that journalism is likely to become a favorite profession among Southern women.

In the West, while Mrs. Swisshelm was still making herself felt as a power in Minnesota, Mrs. Susan C. Vogl, of late years the successful business manager of the _Boston Woman’s Journal_, began journalistic work upon the _Western Spy_ of Sumner, Kansas. Afterwards she wrote for St. Louis and New England papers for some years before her removal to Boston. In 1868 Mrs. Myra Bradwell founded the _Chicago Legal News_, of which she has been ever since the editor and business manager. In 1871 the Illinois Legislature passed special acts making the columns of the _News_ evidence in the courts; and after the burning of all records in the Chicago fire, Mrs. Bradwell’s paper was selected by the circuit and supreme court judges as the publication to have exclusive right to publish notices in regard to their cases. Mrs. Agnes Leonard Hill’s journalistic work began as early as 1869 in Kentucky, was carried on in Chicago papers, and for the last eight years she has been engaged in editorial labors in Colorado.

In 1876 Miss Margaret F. Buchanan, now Mrs. Sullivan, entered upon the journalistic career, in which she speedily gained an enviable reputation, showing herself as thoroughly equipped as any brother of the press among them all to meet the serious questions and vexed problems of political and social science, and equally ready for brilliant descriptive work or discriminating criticism. Near the same time Miss Emily S. Bouton took the position upon the _Toledo Blade_ which, in its varied demands upon her, not only as the head of its literary and household departments, but as leader writer and special contributor, has served to show the wide range of her accomplishments and her ability in every line of journalistic labor. The editorial and dramatic columns of the _Blade_ have been indebted to her for some of their strongest work. It was to the _Blade_ also that “Shirley Dare” gave much of the best of her early versatile achievements in the journalistic field. Somewhat earlier Mrs. Kate Brownlee Sherwood had filled a responsible position upon another Toledo paper. The _Indianapolis Journal_ has for many years given a fair field to women journalists, and in its columns Miss Anna Nicholas, Mrs. Florence Adkinson, Mrs. May Wright Sewall, and others have achieved success. In 1878 Mrs. Belle Ball entered on a very different line of newspaper works as traveling correspondent of the _Albuquerque_ (New Mexico) _Journal_, and of two Kansas papers, her especial duty being to report the progress of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, with all its incidental accompaniments—one of these being for months together the peril to life from Indian foes. After two years of this arduous experience she became an associate editor on a Kansas paper. For the last two years she has been the literary editor of the _Kansas City Times_.

After 1876 women journalists multiplied in the West as rapidly as in New England. The Illinois Woman’s Press Association, formed in 1886, at the close of 1888, numbered 66 members, of whom 45 are either business managers of important journals, editors, or editorial assistants. Investigation shows a large number of newspaper women in the State who have not enrolled themselves in this or any association. The Western Association of Writers, organized in July, 1885, has many women editors, correspondents, and reporters among its members. The Ohio Woman’s Press Association has in its Cincinnati branch over thirty members, nearly all of whom are journalists. The Cleveland branch numbers between forty and fifty, about one-half of whom are authors and one-half journalists.

Earlier than any of these was the Woman’s National Press Association, organized at Washington, D.C., in July, 1882. This has a large membership, and, like all of the others, is in a prosperous condition. Since 1887 a special press gallery for its members has been set apart in each of the houses of Congress. The New England Woman’s Press Association was organized in Boston in November, 1885. At present it numbers nearly 100 members, all journalists or magazine editors. When the _Woman’s Journal_ was established it found no woman journalist in Boston save Miss Sallie Joy, now Mrs. White, who was then doing more or less desultory work upon the _Boston Post_. In 1869 she was enrolled as one of the regular staff of that paper. After her marriage in 1874 she transferred her services to the _Advertiser_, and later to the _Herald_, and to-day she is duly honored by the numerous sisterhood of Boston newspaper women as their pioneer and leader.

Since New York saw the establishment of _Harper’s Bazar_ in the interests of women in one direction, and of the _Revolution_ in another, women’s publications in both of the lines thus indicated have multiplied until it is quite out of the question to give a list of them outside of the pages of a newspaper directory. The most widely known follower in the path of the _Bazar_ is the _Ladies’ Home Journal_ of Philadelphia, of which Mrs. Louisa Knapp was from the beginning until January, 1890, the editor, with a salary of ten thousand dollars a year, and with Mrs. Emma Hewitt and Mrs. Mary Lambert as assistants. There are probably not many more such pecuniary prizes as yet in the grasp of women journalists; but, on the whole, there are not many such open for any one. It may as well be said here that Philadelphia, which was the first city in the United States to set wide open many doors for woman’s work, as yet numbers fewer women journalists than any other large Northern city. Mrs. Hollowell, for many years past editor of the Household department of the _Ledger_, and more recently Mrs. Kate Upson Clark of the _Press_, have broadened their departmental work and made it of great value in educational and divers other lines.

Following the lead of the _Revolution_ and the _Woman’s Journal_ there are many others; some as out-and-out suffrage papers, and others covering more broadly the circle of woman’s industrial and social interests. In the East, the van among these is led by the _Woman’s Magazine_, published by Mrs. Esther T. Housh at Brattleboro, Vermont. Mrs. Housh began its publication originally at Lexington, Kentucky, under the title of _Woman at Work_. In the south is the _Woman’s Chronicle_ of Little Rock, Arkansas. In the far West are the _Queen Bee_ of Denver, Colorado, the _Woman’s Tribune_ of Beatrice, Nebraska, and the _New Northwest_ of Portland, Oregon,—all owned and edited by women. Those in the nearer West are too many to specify. With these, widely differing yet in one sense kindred to them, should be named _The Woman’s Exponent_, the official organ of the Woman’s Association of Utah. It is edited by Emmeline B. Wells, and carries the motto “The Rights of the Women of Zion, and the Rights of the Women of all Nations.” The association which publishes it claims a membership of 22,000 women, “thoroughly organized for the relief of the poor, and for medical, philosophical, historical, and religious study.”

The Pacific slope has had comparatively few women journalists, but the names of several appear upon the roll of membership of the lately formed Central and Northern California Press Association.

The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union has within the last four or five years multiplied greatly the number of women engaged in the practical work of journalism. Beginning with the _Union Signal_, founded by Mrs. Matilda B. Carse in Chicago, they have started up in almost every State of the Union, and many local papers have W. C. T. U. departments, all edited by women.

The vital interest of working women in the vexed problems of the relation between capital and labor has called into existence at least one paper, the _Working Woman_. This is the organ of the Woman’s National Industrial League. It is published in Washington, D. C., by Mrs. Charlotte Smith, who long ago proved her editorial ability in St. Louis. Miss Mary F. Seymour has, more recently, established in New York the _Business Woman’s Journal_, which from its initial number has carried the prestige of success in its chosen field. Miss Fanny M. Earl, of the _Hartford Insurance Journal_ has made her name widely known in business circles all over the country, and aided in conquering their respect for woman’s practical abilities.

Our Anglo-African sisters are awakening to a comprehension of the use of the press as an instrument of value to themselves and their race. The names of half a dozen who have been or are now in editorial charge of race papers are well known, and at least a score of others who are actively engaged in journalism. A few of them have been employed as reporters or as special contributors on some of the leading dailies in our great seaboard cities.

Having noted the rapid increase in the number of newspaper women who in other parts of the country are doing faithful and worthy work in this their chosen profession, it remains to say that New York City has not fallen behind in this respect. The evidence of their capacity and fitness for the work is before the public in almost every daily, weekly, and monthly publication issued in the metropolis. Besides these are many whose work goes, through the syndicate system, all over the country. Their work, usually signed, serves even more widely to attract ambitious and intelligent young women to the same profession than does the exceptional reputation of such editors as Miss Booth, Mrs. M. M. Dodge, Mrs. Martha J. Lamb, and Miss Jeanette Gilder. There are two Amateur Press Associations of these youthful intending journalists in New England. There may be others in other parts of the country. And the number of those who are being inducted into the practical work of journalism, on rural and county papers, owned by their relatives or friends, grows greater every year.

From the very first there have been for women in journalism an open door and a fair field. The earliest comers went into it because their services were sought for. Themselves and those whom their success led to embrace the same profession met with a warm welcome from the public; in not a few instances even an enthusiastic one.

In each and every department of journalism—whether in office work, i.e. as editors, editorial assistants, or reporters; or in outside work, as correspondents, special contributors, or syndicate writers—the wages paid to women are the same as those paid to men of similar capacity, doing the same work. The prices paid vary according to the financial status of the papers themselves. In the larger cities writers “on space” receive on some journals payment at the rate of five dollars per column; some other papers pay as much as ten dollars per column. With all these writers, except where special articles have been ordered by the chief, and the length thereof specified, it is a matter of uncertainty how much space will be given them. The exigencies of the case often cut down what, under other circumstances, would be a welcome column article to two or three paragraphs, sometimes to as many lines. Office salaries in large cities vary from ten or even only eight dollars per week to as much as fifty or sixty dollars per week. A fair average for syndicate correspondence is probably about ten dollars per column. On country and county papers wages are of course much lower, often running down to a figure which makes outside labor needful for even plain country living. But whether in city or country women who can do the needful work as well as men may be sure of as good pay as men, and of fair and just treatment at the hands of their journalistic brethren.