She broke "glass ceiling" in journalism

Charlotte Curtis, a graduate of Ohio University and reporter for the old Columbus Citizen, probably was the first woman to break the “glass ceiling” in journalism. She was both the first woman on the masthead of The New York Times and one of the last women to always be the only woman in the room in the world of big-time journalism. Curtis was mentioned in a June 14, 2007 post on this blog headlined “Ohioans play role in American journalism”.

She became an op-ed editor for the New York Times in 1980, a position she held until shortly before her death in 1987.

Her career is chronicled in a book titled “Woman of the Times” by Marilyn S. Greenwald published in 1999 Ohio University Press.

The dust jacket says this:

“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 associate 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.

“Curtis grew up in Columbus, Ohio, her mother a prominent woman suffrage leader and diplomat. Well educated and well traveled, Curtis returned to Columbus after Vassar to become a reporter at the Columbus Citizen. From here she broke into the upper echelons of the male-dominated Times, but not without sacrifices.

“As Greenwald's fine, insightful narrative reveals, Curtis's successes were hard won. Intelligent, talented, and ambitious, Curtis invented her own brand of feminism in order to make her way among people of power. Her frank, take-no-prisoners writing style paved the way for journalists who followed her. And in the 1960s, '70S, and '80S, pivotal decades in American journalism, she covered some of the key stories of the era-the Robert F. Kennedy funeral train, the early days of the women's movement, and the tumultuous 1968 political conventions.”

Curtis, who died of cancer at the age of 58 in 1987, was still making news in the last decade. In 2000, a $2 million gift from the Charlotte Curtis Hunt Living Trust to the Ohio State University Foundation established the William E. Hunt, M.D. and Charlotte M. Curtis Neuroscience Endowment Fund within the university's College of Medicine and Public Health.

The gift was made in memory of the late Dr. Hunt, former head of neurosurgery at Ohio State, and his late wife, Charlotte Curtis Hunt, a former editor at the New York Times.

Author Greenwald, formerly a reporter and editor at several daily newspapers in Ohio, is now a professor of journalism at Ohio University.

An August 29, 1999 review of the book by Judith Martin was not complimentary. It was headlined: “Too Much a Lady? Charlotte Curtis changed journalism but had no use for feminism.”

Curtis was probably not a crusader for women’s rights as the book alludes, but the New York Times reviewer does not point out that Curtis was able to surmount the male hierarchy of the newspaper to become a top editor. You can go to the review for a link to the first chapter of Greenwald’s book.

You can find the book in most libraries. The copy at Akron-Summit County Library was a memorial gift “in honor of Frances Murphey.” Murphey was not a feminist, but the wearer of coveralls could put guys in their place. For some crazy reason, she did not like “Frances Murphey.” She preferred “Fran Murphy” in the diminutive or “Frances B. Murphey” with that middle initial for “Burke” in any other mention. More than one of her editors got chewed out for using it incorrectly.