Celebrating the Achievements of Women Writers
and Trailblazing Journalists
by Marion E. Gold


"Life can't ever really defeat a writer."--Edna Ferber

From Enheduanna, a Sumerian writer and high priestess living in circa 2000 BC who authored the first attributed literary effort in history, to Ida B. Wells-Barnett, who wrote about the economic roots of the lynchings in the South to Mary Mitchell, columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, women have played a remarkable role in literature and journalism.

Yet men's names predominate in history, partly because there is no formal repository of women's historical contributions.  did you know that since the annual Nobel Prize for Literature was first awarded in 1901, only eight women have received it?

The following are little-known facts about women who quite literally changed our lives forever because of their extraordinary talent and courage:

• Anne Bradstreet was the first published poet in American history.  Bradstreet abandoned a life of nobility in England before 1644, to settle in Massachusetts with her husband.  Her poems were first published in 1650.
• Lady Murasake Shikibu, a Japanese noblewoman who was born in 970 and died in 1004, wrote the earliest novel on record.  Her work is considered a masterpiece by many critics.
• Ann Franklin, Benjamin Franklin's sister-in-law, was editor of the Newport, R.I., Mercury in 1762.
• Elizabeth Timothy became the first woman editor in the South, putting out the South-Carolina Gazette in 1738.
• Adela Rogers St. Johns, an investigative reporter, exposed the widespread corruption of the Los Angeles City government in the 1920s.
• Mary Katherine Goddard and her mother, Sarah Updike Goddard, published the weekly Providence Gazette in Rhode Island from 1765 to 1768.  Mary Goddard also published the Maryland Journal and printed the first signed copy of the Declaration of Independence.
• Emily Edson Briggs, after writing a letter in 1861 defending women as government clerks, became a daily columnist for the jointly owned Philadelphia Press and Washington Chronicle--and the first woman to report regularly on White House news.
• Anna Katharine Green wrote the first American detective novel, entitled The Leavenworth Case, in 1878.
• Doris Fleeson, in 1945, became the first woman to write a syndicated political column.
• Alice Allison Dunnigan, in 1946, became the first African-American woman journalist to get White House credentials.
• Pauline Frederick was the first woman news reporter on TV, covering the 1948 political conventions for ABC .

There is so much more!  No study of the history of literature and journalism is complete without recognizing how women helped shaped society through their writings.   As more and more women are recognized for their successful careers in publishing and journalism, just imagine what wonderful insights are yet to be discovered.  Just imagine!

Marion E. Gold is President of Marion Gold & Company Marketing Communications in Chicago.  She is on the Board of the Illinois Woman's Press Association and the Advisory Board of the National Women's History Museum.  She can be reached at 155 North Michigan Avenue, Suite 626, Chicago, IL 60601, or at 312-616-4485.

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