For as long as I can remember, Marlene Cook has been and remains a North Star for those of us fortunate enough to know her. She has led a life devoted to journalism, the arts, family, and service. A brilliant writer and trailblazer for women in journalism, her talent, and her generosity to those around [...]
Anna Byford Leonard Visionary Women – Champions of Peace and Nonviolence is the theme of the 2019 Women’s History Month. Illinois Woman’s Press Association advocacy has roots in the 19th-century suffrage movement. Throughout the past century, IWPA rights advocates worked both inside and outside of the political system to promote women’s and children’s rights not [...]
Carrie Ashton Johnson, born Carrie May Ashton, came from comfortable beginnings in Durand, Illinois, before setting off on a career that would make her among the foremost local women in northern Illinois to take an active part in securing women’s rights. Much of this was rooted in her childhood, where from her father she first [...]
Maude M. Jackson loved children. She especially enjoyed teaching them. She spent part of her career writing training material encouraging children’s skills for vocal and physical development to be used not just inside a classroom, but also at church, and within the home. Between 1901 and 1902, as a member of the Illinois Woman’s Press [...]
She started her journalistic career while attending high school in her hometown, Joliet, Illinois. Stateville, a maximum security state prison, sits on the rolling edge of the neighboring town of Crest Hill situated on Route 53. It is 37 miles south of Chicago. The prison was then and remains now, home for some of Chicago’s [...]
Attending Chicago's Old Town Art Fair is a June ritual for residents and out-of-town visitors. The Fair and its art center have played an essential role Lucille Hecht (IWPA archives) in defining that Near North Side neighborhood. It is uniquely Chicago. Years ago, when forces were coming together to create the first art [...]
In a time when women had limited options, Daisy M. Seright lived her very full and long life in the southern Illinois town of Harrisburg. When she Daisy M. Seright died in 1988 at the age of 102, she had been the chairwoman and president of the Register Publishing Co. for more than [...]
The story of the National Federation of Press Women began more than 80 years ago when Helen Miller Malloch had a vision Helen Miller Malloch 20th president of IWPA for a national organization of professional newspaperwomen and writers in 1935, similar to the vision Marion MacBride from the Boston Post had in 1884, [...]
Fanny Butcher image circa 1910 courtesy Fanny Butcher Papers, The Newberry Library, Chicago Fanny Butcher turned to the “News of the Women’s Clubs” page of the Chicago Tribune. There she found listings for a wealth of meeting and event announcements. The year was 1912 and the Chicago woman’s club movement was thriving and [...]
Image of Lillian Russell by Falk from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs Division Lillian Russell was flamboyant, talented and the unmistakable beauty of her generation. Her voice and appearance led her to a celebrated career and lifestyle unmatched in the late 19th and early part of the 20th centuries. [...]
