Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (79Th, Anaheim, CA, August 10-13, 1996)
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DOCUMENT RESUME ED 401 560 CS 215 568 TITLE Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (79th, Anaheim, CA, August 10-13, 1996). History Division. INSTITUTION Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. PUB DATE Aug 96 NOTE 549p.; For other sections of these proceedings, see CS 215 569-580. PUB TYPE Collected Works Conference Proceedings (021) EDRS PRICE MF02/PC22 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS American Indians; Blacks; Broadcast Industry; Censorship; Foreign Countries; *Journalism; *Journalism History; Periodicals; Social Integration; *United States History; War IDENTIFIERS China; Dust Bowl (Great Depression); Japanese Relocation Camps; Ku Klux Klan; *Media Coverage; Muckraking; New Republic (Journal); New York Times; Womens History ABSTRACT The history section of the Proceedings contains the following 17 papers: "A Bid for Legitimacy: The Women's Press Club Movement, 1881-1900" (Elizabeth V. Burt); "'Securing the Affections of Those People at This Critical Juncture': Newspaper Portrayal of Colonial-Native American Relations, 1754-1763" (David A. Copeland); "'The Unfortunate Conflict in Far Off Asia': Three Black Newspapers View the Vietnam War, 1967" (Frank E. Fee, Jr.); "The Muckrakers' Reign on 'The American Magazine,' 1906-1911" (Michele C. Glidden); "Common Forms for Uncommon Actions: The Search for Political Organization in Dust Bowl California" (James Hamilton); "WGPR-TV, 1975-1995: Rest in Peace (A History of the First Television Station Licensed to Blacks in the Continental USA)" (James Phillip Jeter); "Maternal Images in the Age of the Girl: The Work of Jessie Willcox Smith and Other Women Artists in Early-Twentieth-Century Magazine Illustration" (Carolyn L. Kitch); "'All Brides Are Not Beautiful': The Rise of Charlotte Curtis at the 'New York Times" (Marilyn Greenwald); "A Different Story: How the Press Covered Baseball's First Integrated Spring Training" (Chris Lamb and Glen Bleske); "A 'Slanderous and Nasty-Minded Mulattress,' Ida B. Wells, Confronts 'Objectivity' in the 1890s" (David T.Z. Mindich); "The 'New Republic' and Japanese Mass Internment during World War II, 1941-1945: The Liberal Magazine's Uniqueness and Limitations" (Takeya Mizuno); "A History of St. Louis Newspapers: Context for the Birth of the 'Sun' in 1989" (James E. Mueller); "The Political Costs of Press Controls: Woodrow Wilson and Wartime Suppression" (Jeffery A. Smith); "Coxey's Army and the Argus-Eyed Demons of Hell: Sensationalism and the Symbiotic Relationship of Press and Publicity Seekers in News Coverage of the 1894 March on Washington" (Michael S. Sweeney); "Defying the Ku Klux Klan: Three 1920s Newspapers Challenge the Most Powerful Nativist Movement in American History" (Rodger Streitmatter); "The Evolution of the Party News Media Editorship in China: A Historical Study" (Kewen Zhang); and "Hybrid Journalism Epitomized: Riding the Frontier/Commercial Cusp, 1893-1894" (David J. Vergobbi). Individual papers contain references. (RS) Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (79th, Anaheim, CA, August 10-13, 1996). History Division. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND Office of Educational Research and Improvement DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) HAS BEEN GRANTED BY This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. J Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) official OERI position or policy. 2 BEST COPY AVAHABLE A BID FOR LEGITIMACY: THE WOMAN'S PRESS CLUB MOVEMENT, 1881-1900 By Elizabeth V. Burt Assistant Professor School of Communication University of Hartford West Hartford, CT Presented to The Annual Convention of the AEJMC Anaheim, California, August 1996 A BID FOR LEGITIMACY: THE WOMAN'S PRESS CLUB MOVEMENT, 1881-1900 During the last fifteen years of the Nineteenth Century, women journalists across the country mobilized to claim their legitimate place within the journalism profession, establishing more than seventeenwoman'spress associations and clubs. Thispaper establishes the basic facts concerningthese organizations, discusses some of the issues they addressed as well as how they were received by the male-dominated journalism community, and considers how the twentieth century definition of women journalists was formed as a result of debatesconductedwithinthese organizations. The author proposes that although the associations were founded in the cooperative and supportive spirit of the nineteenth century woman's club movement,they came in direct conflict with the emerging ideology of the Twentieth Century that encouraged and rewarded pragmatism, competition, and "productivity." The conflict between these two value systems caused a deep schism within the clubs as well as within individual women journalists that can be detected even today. 4 A Bid for Legitimacy: The Woman's Press Club Movement, 1881-1900 During the last fifteen years of the Nineteenth Century, women journalists across the country mobilized to claim their legitimate place within the journalism profession. Long denied respect, recognition, equal pay, and equal opportunity, more than 700 organized, joined, and participated in women's press associations in more than seventeen states. This explosion of professional and feminist activism coincided with a general upsurge in the woman's movement that culminated with the passage of the suffrage amendment in 1919, as well as a trend within the journalism community to legitimize itself through associations, codes, and professional training.1 Although this wasan important period in the development of women journalists, journalism scholars have written little about the woman's press club movement of the 1880s. In her study of the Women's National Press Club, founded in Washington, D.C. in 1919, historian Maurine Beasley briefly mentions the earlier formation of two such organizations in that city which, by the post-World War era, had "faded from the scene."2 In a more recent work, historian Agnes Hooper Gottlieb examines the Woman's Press Club of New York City, founded in 1889. She finds that the club helped promote journalism as a career for women, created a forum for discussion of important issues, and provided a necessary network for women journalists who were often isolated in the male-dominated profession.3 Other than these contributions, women's press clubs of this period have been discussed only in passing, usually only in connection with the women prominent in their leadership.4 This oversight may be attributed in part to a tendency among woman journalism historians to focus on biographical studies or on the involvement of women journalists in particular issues such as suffrage, reproductive rights, and the Equal Rights Amendment. It may also be attributed, however, to a general paucity in archival material and organizational records from this period.5 This paper,therefore,has three goals. First, it shall attempt to 1 establish the basic facts concerning the major women's press organizations founded during the period 1881-1900. Second, it shall discuss some of the issues addressed by these various organizations and how they were received by the male- dominated journalism community. Finally, it shall consider how, as a result of debates focused on eligibility to the press associations, the twentieth century definition of women journalists was formed. Growth and Discontent The last two decades of the century were years of great possibility for women who sought to enter the journalism field, yet it was also a period during which they faced great frustration. Between 1880 and 1890 the number of women journalists counted by the federal census increased from 288 to 888, and by 1900, their number had nearly tripled to 2,193.6 But even though their numbers were steadily increasing, fulltime women journalists during this period represented less than seven percent of the total number of journalists counted by the census. Furthermore, these women were not only a minority within their profession, they also exercised little power within the newsroom, rarely holding editorialor decision-making positions. Finally, the few women who occupied editorial posts, as well as the majority of women reporters, were usually assigned to the women's or society pages where they were restricted to providing advice on "women's issues" such as fashion, food, and family. When women journalists attempted to escape these confines, they were often greeted with ridicule and hostility by their male colleagues. Here is howone contemporary described the lot of women seeking to enter the profession prior to the early 1880s: Young ladies who dared to lift their heads in the sea of journalism immediately became the targets for the envenomed shafts of small men.Their abilities were questioned,their intentions suspected, their reputations bandied from sneering lip to careless tongue, and on every hand they were met with discou;pgements, until the waves of disappointment and all the billows of despair rolled over them.' Some women journalists attempted to describe this situation in a humorous fashion, describing in a literal sense the obstacles they had to overcome before gaining access to an editor, a story, and some form of recognition. According to Texas journalist