Women writers reflect on their careers, the role of women in documenting history by ellie taylor In 1963, Judith Welles walked into The Washington Post’s offices, a collection of writing samples in her hand. She had just graduated from Vassar College and was hoping to land a position as a beat reporter. After writing obituaries for the local newspaper while in college, the chance to tell the stories of “living people” excited her, she said. To her dismay, she didn’t land the position. Nor did she land the position of assignment reporter, sports reporter or any other familiar role. Instead, Welles was assigned the role of “dictation reporter.” Rather than researching and reporting on her own, she would be receiving phone calls from male beat reporters and typing up the stories they called in. Because there was a chance she would have to go out in the city alone at night to report, the role of beat reporter was “too dangerous” for a woman, her bosses told her. “That wasn’t acceptable,” Welles said. “So I walked out of there.” She was able to land a new job at the Department of the Interior, where she wrote speeches for the department’s secretary. But her experience at The Washington Post was not an isolated one. During Women’s History Month, the need is even greater to recognize the historic contributions of women in journalism and analyze how the nature of female journalism has evolved over time. Welles faced gender discrimination in the 1960s, but that discrimination dates back to the turn of the 20th century, as women were staking out their place in newsrooms across the country. Even before the female picketers and club leaders of the 1910s
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women’s suffrage movement, women advocated through writing. From 1869 to 1914, there were about 12 female-run newspapers in the American West dedicated to spreading the messages of the suffrage movement and to shedding light on the plight of the nation’s women. In 1853, Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis established the Una, one of the first publications in America that aimed to highlight the push for women’s rights. The newspaper, run entirely by women, served as a mirror for female readers, offering a clear reflection of the institutionalized oppression they faced until publication ceased in 1855. The Revolution soon followed, another feminist publication brought to life by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony in the late 1860s. Their publication sought both to address the general disparity in the treatment of men and women in society and to outwardly push for suffrage. The publishers printed 10,000 copies of The Revolution’s first issue. Though received positively by many and inspiring a number of women to join the movement, the Una and The Revolution eventually lost their audience to more conservative publications. The Women’s Journal was one such publication. While still raising awareness about the disparate treatment of women in society, it included sections dedicated to gossip, humor, letters and poetry, among other topics. The Women’s Journal created a relationship with its readers that extended beyond feminism; it formed a bridge between maintaining the current status quo and effectuating radical societal change, appealing to conservative and progressive citizens alike. At the same time as the suffrage movement, a new strain of female
