View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Carolina Digital Repository CONDITIONS OF ACCEPTANCE: THE UNITED STATES MILITARY, THE PRESS, AND THE “WOMAN WAR CORRESPONDENT,” 1846-1945 Carolyn M. Edy A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Chapel Hill 2012 Approved by: Jean Folkerts W. Fitzhugh Brundage Jacquelyn Dowd Hall Frank E. Fee, Jr. Barbara Friedman ©2012 Carolyn Martindale Edy ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii Abstract CAROLYN M. EDY: Conditions of Acceptance: The United States Military, the Press, and the “Woman War Correspondent,” 1846-1945 (Under the direction of Jean Folkerts) This dissertation chronicles the history of American women who worked as war correspondents through the end of World War II, demonstrating the ways the military, the press, and women themselves constructed categories for war reporting that promoted and prevented women’s access to war: the “war correspondent,” who covered war-related news, and the “woman war correspondent,” who covered the woman’s angle of war. As the first study to examine these concepts, from their emergence in the press through their use in military directives, this dissertation relies upon a variety of sources to consider the roles and influences, not only of the women who worked as war correspondents but of the individuals and institutions surrounding their work. Nineteenth and early 20th century newspapers continually featured the woman war correspondent—often as the first or only of her kind, even as they wrote about more than sixty such women by 1914. Despite the continued presence of women war correspondents in news accounts, if not always in war zones, it was not until 1944 that United States military considered sex among its “conditions of acceptance” for accrediting correspondents. In 1943, to publicize women’s war-related work abroad, the military began accrediting “women war correspondents,” in addition to those women who had gained accreditation on the basis of their military or foreign relations expertise. The iii presence and visibility of “women war correspondents” not only meant that newcomers competed for facilities, stories, and access but also threatened the public’s perception of “war correspondent”—as not necessarily a man’s job—and “woman war correspondent”—as not necessarily a war correspondent. The military’s 1944 directives for women war correspondents considered sex the unifying factor, discounting any differences in expertise or experience and revoking the exceptional status some women had long taken for granted. Ultimately, these directives caused more problems for the military than they resolved. By making barriers visible and placing them in the way of all women accredited as war correspondents, they led women who previously worked as exceptions alongside men to fight the directives on behalf of all women, even as they found ways around these directives. iv Acknowledgments I would like to thank professors Fitz Brundage, Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, Frank Fee, Jean Folkerts, and Barbara Friedman for their guidance and assistance throughout this project. I am especially thankful to Barbara and Jean for their feedback and support, not to mention their time. Jean’s encouragement and coaching in the final stages of this project helped me reach the end just when I began to question whether such a place existed. My history classes, especially those taught by professors Brundage, Dowd Hall, Fee, Friedman, Lisa Lindsay, and Betty Winfield, helped guide my project and informed my work. I would also like to thank my classmates, and professors Rhonda Gibson and Anne Johnston, as well as the staff members at Carroll Hall, whose friendly faces and ready assistance made graduate school a better place. My graduate studies were made possible by the generous support of the Park Foundation, and my research benefitted from the Mary Gardner Graduate Student Research Award, the Minnie S. and Eli A. Rubinstein Research Award, and the Joseph L. Morrison Award for Excellence in Journalism History. A generous Schlesinger Library grant allowed me to spend two weeks immersed in the archives (though Schlesinger’s meticulous files made it harder to return to the abyss of World War II documents in the National Archives). Finally, I continue to be grateful to my family and friends for their encouragement and support throughout this project, and long before. I especially want to thank my daughter, Lucy, who inspires me each day. v Table of Contents List of Tables ................................................................................................. viii List of Acronyms and Abbreviations ............................................................... ix PART I. Study Overview ........................................................................................................ 1 Chapter One. Background and Literature Review ............................................ 6 The United States during World War II ................................................ 6 Women and Work during World War II ............................................. 10 The Press during World War II ........................................................... 19 Women and Journalism ....................................................................... 24 Women, Journalism, and World War II .............................................. 29 Chapter Two. Theory and Approach .............................................................. 37 Theoretical Framework ....................................................................... 37 Justification and Purpose .................................................................... 41 Method ................................................................................................ 46 PART II. A Womanly View of War .................................................................................... 52 Chapter Three. A Lady War Correspondent, 1846 to 1914 ............................ 57 Chapter Four. Conditions of Acceptance, 1914 to 1940 ................................. 67 vi PART III. A Woman’s Province in the Good War ............................................................ 78 Chapter Five. To Play Men’s Rules, 1941-1942 ............................................. 83 Chapter Six. Women’s Stuff and the Little Stories, 1942-1943 ................... 101 Chapter Seven. As Epitomes of All the Rest, 1943-1944 ............................. 119 Chapter Eight. A Matter of Special Facility, 1944 ....................................... 134 Chapter Nine. Outstanding and Conspicuous Service, 1945 ........................ 148 PART IV. Persona Non Grata ........................................................................................... 164 Chapter Ten. Conclusion .............................................................................. 166 War Correspondents and the Woman’s Angle of War ..................... 167 Chapter Eleven. Limitations and Future Research ....................................... 174 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................ 191 Manuscript Collections ..................................................................... 191 Contemporaneous Articles from Newspapers and Magazines ......... 192 Contemporaneous Literature and Autobiographies .......................... 199 Secondary Sources ............................................................................ 201 vii List of Tables Table 1. American women war correspondents through World War I ...........................183 Table 2. American women whom Allied Forces recognized or accredited as war correspondents in World War II ..........................................................................187 viii Abbreviations AGWAR Adjutant General, War Department CBI China-Burma-India Theater CCS Combined Chiefs of Staff JCS U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff OSS Office of Strategic Services PRD Public Relations Division PRO Public Relations Officer SEAC Southeast Asia Command SHAEF Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force SWPA Southwest Pacific Area WAAC Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps WAC Women’s Army Corps WD War Department ix PART I. Study Overview Introduction The chief Berlin correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, beginning in 1926, smoked a pipe, spoke more than five languages, had an uncanny ability to “drink” German officials under the table, and used covert tactics to scoop reporters worldwide on the impending death of Weimar Germany’s first president, Hitler’s plans for world war, and, finally, confirmation of Hitler’s death.1 The New York Times correspondent who won the 1937 Pulitzer for best interpretation of foreign affairs was among the first to predict for American readers the rise and wrath of a young, vastly underestimated Mussolini and had once procured a six- hour interview with Stalin at a time when he refused access to all other foreign reporters.2 1Julia Edwards, Women of the World: The Great Foreign Correspondents (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988), 62-70; Ishbel Ross, Ladies of the Press: The Story of Women in Journalism by an Insider (New York: Harper, 1936), 377; and Lilya Wagner, Women War Correspondents of World War II (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989), 99, 102. Sigrid Schultz paid bartenders to serve her nonalcoholic drinks “that looked like