Doris Fleeson: Incomparably the First Political Journalist of Her Time

Front Cover
Sunstone Press, 2010 - Biography & Autobiography - 300 pages
"She was my idol," said columnist Mary McGrory. McGrory, in writing of women, referred to Doris Fleeson as "incomparably the first political journalist of her time." Fleeson was, in fact, the first woman in the United States to become a nationally syndicated political columnist. In 1945, with the encouragement of Henry Mencken, she launched her column. In her career she would write some 5,500 columns during the next twenty-two years. Fleeson's appearance could be disarming. Once at a party Lady Bird Johnson exclaimed, "What a gorgeous dress, Doris. It makes you look just like a sweet, old-fashioned girl." The wife of Senator Stuart Symington interjected, "Yes, just a sweet old-fashioned girl with a shiv in her hand." Carolyn Sayler lives in Lyons, Kansas, ten miles from the town of Sterling where Doris Fleeson was born in 1901. Knowing members of the Fleeson family, she began researching the life of the columnist whose straightforward take on Washington became a daily fix for newspaper readers across the nation. Sayler has a background in journalism as a member of a Kansas newspaper family. She is the author of a history of Manhattan, Kansas, which tells of the town's founding during the Free State struggle, its strong connections with New England, and its abolitionist college, now Kansas State University.
 

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
8
INTRODUCTION
9
STUNT GIRL
13
4
22
IDEAL UNIVERSITY
28
GOLDEN ERA
35
A TABLOID A DAY
38
THE NEWSPAPER GAME
44
BEHIND THE LINES
131
INVASION OF ITALY
145
17
151
18
152
LAUNCHING A COLUMN
156
GEORGETOWN
170
MR AVERAGE MAN
183
OUR DORIS
202

ENVIABLE COUPLE
50
POLITICAL BAPTISM
55
CAPITAL STUFF
68
CLASH OF KANSANS
77
LADIES OF THE PRESS
83
CLOUDS OF WAR
95
DARK HORSE
109
HENRY MY LOVE
118
21
208
FLOWER OF EVIL
221
WOMEN THE REALISTS
241
NOTES
265
BIBLIOGRAPHY
289
INDEX
293
Copyright

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