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)
For twenty-five years, Charlotte Curtis was a society/women's
reporter and editor and an op-ed editor at the New York Times. As
the first woman section editor at the Times, Curtis was a
pioneering journalist and one of the first nationwide to change the
nature and content of the women's pages from fluffy wedding
announcements and recipes to the more newsy, issue-oriented stories
that characterize them today. In this riveting biography, Marilyn
Greenwald describes how a woman reporter from Columbus, Ohio, broke
into the ranks of the male-dominated upper echelon at the New York
Times. It documents what she did to succeed and what she had to
sacrifice. Charlotte Curtis paved the way for the journalists who
followed her. A Woman of the Times offers a chronicle of her
hard-won journey as she invents her own brand of feminism during
the 1960s and 1970s. In the telling of this remarkable woman's life
is the story, as well, of a critical era in the nation's social
history.
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