Overview

Full Product Details

9780821412657

Table of Contents

Reviews

What can you say about a woman who was brilliant, unique, and never let her own success go to her head - a woman who died all too young at the tender age of fifty-eight and at the top of her game? -- Liz Smith Charlotte Curtis was one smart, tough, and sassy journalist. Marilyn Greenwald splendidly captures the life and times of a newspaper legend. -- David Schneiderman

A fine biography of a woman who inched her way into the power circle at one of America's most influential newspapers, by journalism professor Greenwald (Ohio Univ.). Charlotte Curtis may never have forgotten her Columbus, Ohio, roots ( I'm just a little girl from Ohio, she would say disarmingly), but when she pecked her weekly words as a society writer at the Nw York Times, she was as rapier sharp and savvy as the most jaded urban resident. After a decade at the Columbus Citizen-Journal, Curtis moved to the Times, where she quickly earned a reputation for writing women's news that was more a sociological study than a straight report of the latest soiree. Promoted to society editor, Curtis became a leader in the New Journalism style. Her account of Truman Capote's famous Black and White Ball and later Leonard Bernstein's ill-conceived fund-raising party for the Black Panthers are among the many stories that catapulted her to fame (and infamy) both within and outside of the Times. Greenwald's biography is more than a personal chronicle, however. As a reporter who hit her stride in the tumultuous 1960s and '70s, Curtis and her gradual entry into a male-dominated field is, in some ways, the story of Everywoman. Interestingly, Curtis, while an avid proponent of equality in the workplace, did not join the class action lawsuit against the Times by female employees in the 1970s. Nor did she refrain from mocking feminist events. In a radio commentary, Curtis, who eventually became op-ed editor, notes that if women want to be taken as seriously as they deserve, they will have to get their message across not just loud and clear but logically and simply. Otherwise, nobody's really going to understand how important this movement is. Not popular sentiment at the time, but then Curtis never was one to mince words. An insightful look at the Times and the times. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

Marilyn Greenwald, a former newspaper reporter, is a professor of journalism at Ohio University. She is the author of Pauline Frederick Reporting: A Pioneering Broadcaster Covers the Cold War, A Woman of the Times: Journalism, Feminism, and the Career of Charlotte Curtis (Ohio University Press, 1999), and The Secret of the Hardy Boys: Leslie McFarlane and the Stratemeyer Syndicate (Ohio University Press, 2004).

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available