Maggie Savoy: Difference between revisions
←Created page with '{{short description|American newspaper editor (1917–1970)}} {{Use American English|date=April 2023}} {{Use mdy dates|date=April 2023}} {{Infobox person | name = Maggie Savoy | image = | alt = | caption = | other_names = | birth_name = Margaret Ann Case | birth_date = {{Birth year|1917}} | birth_place = Des Moines, Iowa, U.S. | death_date = {{Death date and...' |
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Revision as of 19:57, 7 April 2023
Maggie Savoy | |
|---|---|
| Born | Margaret Ann Case 1917 Des Moines, Iowa, U.S. |
| Died | December 19, 1970 (aged 52–53) |
| Alma mater | University of Southern California |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Years active | 1947–1970 |
| Spouses | William Savoy
(m. 1940; div. 1950)J.W. Pitts III
(m. 1951; died 1963) |
Margaret Ann Savoy Bellows (née Case; 1917 – December 19, 1970) was an American newspaper editor. She was the women's editor for Phoenix Gazette between 1947 and 1959, and then spent five years at The Arizona Republic. She moved to New York City in 1964 following her third marriage, to fellow journalist Jim Bellows, and wrote for the Associated Press, before joining United Press International to write on its urban beat. After moving to Los Angeles in 1967, she became the women's editor for the Los Angeles Times, where she profiled women including Joan Didion, Maya Angelou and Nancy Reagan.
Early life
Savoy was born Margaret Ann Case in 1917 in Des Moines, Iowa. Her mother was a teacher and encyclopedia salesperson and she had one brother, Robert. She attended Fillmore Elementary School in Cedar Rapids before the family moved to Omaha, Nebraska, and Phoenix, Arizona. She often visited her uncle in New York by herself while growing up. She graduated from the University of Southern California with an honors degree in journalism in 1940, where she had been a member of Phi Beta Kappa. The day after graduation, she married her classmate William Savoy.[1]
Career
Her first job after graduation was in publicity for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios, before working for comedian Red Skelton and then opening public relations company in Phoenix. She began writing as the women's editor for the Phoenix Gazette in 1947, where she wrote the column 'Around Town'. The newpaper owner, Eugene C. Pulliam, was famously conservative but he respected Savoy's liberal views.[1] She spent ten years at the paper before joining The Arizona Republic in 1959 where she wrote the daily 'Savoy Faire' column. She was at the Republic until 1964.[1][2] Throughout her career, she wrote about social issues such as racism, sexism and economic inequality, which won her the first Arizona Newspaper Association award for best women's section. She pressed for the wedding announcements of African-Americans to be included in the paper at a time when this was rare and wrote stories on rape helplines, domestic violence and pay disparities.[3][4]: 147 Savoy was also interested in environmental issues, working with local leaders to establish the Valley Beautiful Committee, raising money for subterranean power lines and protecting green spaces.[1][3] Her editor, J. Edward Murray, wrote that she used the column to "stir a social conscience in the movers and shakers".[4]: 68–69
In 1959, an interview she conducted with Casey Stengel, manger for the New York Yankees, became national news after he protested at her taking down his words verbatim. This attention led to her being awarded "Arizona Newspaper Woman of the Year" by the Arizona Federation of Press Women and a Penney-Missouri Award, and she became involved with national industry organizations, attending the first meeting of women's editors held by the American Press Institute in 1959.[1] Savoy worked with the Associated Press Managing Editors and Marie Anderson in 1963 to survey women's editors and their managing editors on the content of women's pages in newspapers, discovering that women's issues received fewer column inches and that women's editors were lower paid and often excluded from meetings, a report that was published as "What Does Your Women's Editor Think of You?" A follow-up survey was completed six years later, titled "How is it going in the women's departments? Or what has happened since Anderson-Savoy?" which showed little progress had been made.[1][5][6]
In 1964, she moved to New York City and began writing for the Associated Press, although issues with her supervisor led to her leaving in November 1965. She began working for United Press International (UPI), focusing on cities; the appointment was announced in Editor & Publisher as "the first woman at a wire service to cover an urban beat".[1]: 57 She relocated to Los Angeles in 1967 but continued writing for UPI, travelling around the country for her stories and giving speeches to local societies about urban development. Once in California, she was quickly approached by the Los Angeles Times — where her husband was the associate editor — about joining the paper to reform their women's section as the society editor. She took the job, although she convinced them to change her title to women's editor.[1] As couples were unable to work together at the paper, her section was renamed as View, which was intended to focus on features about the LA region.[1][7]
While at the Times, Savoy wrote personal columns, news stories and profiles on women including Marilyn Lewis, Adela Rogers St. Johns, Joan Didion, Clare Boothe Luce, Maya Angelou and Nancy Reagan. Her news stories covered topics such as the death penalty, women on welfare, drug addiction and inner-city schools. At the 1968 Democratic National Convention, she was one of the reporters to be tear-gassed by the police. She wrote about the women's liberation movement in a number of profiles on Elizabeth Duncan Koontz, director of the United States Women's Bureau, Jo Ann Evansgardner, an activist of the National Organization for Women (NOW), and Aileen Hernandez, president of NOW.[1] Savoy was a strong supporter of the women's movement, describing herself as "a bra-wearing, dues paying member of women's liberation".[1]: 60 She was listed as one of the "Reporters You Can Trust" which was published by the feminist organization KNOW, Inc.[1][8]
Personal life
Savoy was married to her first husband for a decade and the couple had one son together, William, before their divorce in 1950. The following year she married J. W. Pitts III, a vice president of Valley National Bank, until his death in a car accident in May 1963. She had met Jim Bellows, then an editor at the New York Herald Tribune, in January 1961 while covering a fashion show in New York City. The two began an affair shortly before her second husband's death and a few months later, he left his family for Savoy. When Bellows finalized his divorce, they married in May 1964 with Jimmy Breslin serving as the best man. The judge who officiated the wedding commented on her surnames, as there were more than would fit on the marriage form.[1]
Death and legacy
Savoy was diagnosed with uterine cancer seven months after her marriage to Bellows, which went into remission following chemotherapy. She was then diagnosed with esophageal cancer on July 28, 1970, and told that she had only months to live. She wrote a draft of a book about her experiences of cancer, comprised primarily of her diary entries, which was published as a column with UPI. She died on December 19, 1970, at the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles.[1][2] An award in her honor was created by the Los Angeles Women in Communication following her death. Bellows wrote a book about her in 1971 titled, Anyone Who Enters Here Must Celebrate Maggie.[1]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Voss, Kimberly Wilmot (January 1, 2009). "Forgotten Feminist: Women's Page Editor Maggie Savoy and the Growth of Women's Liberation Awareness in Los Angeles". California History. 86 (2): 48–73. doi:10.2307/40495208. ISSN 0162-2897.
- ^ a b "Maggie Savoy Bellows, 53, Of The Los Angeles Times". The New York Times. December 20, 1970. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 6, 2022.
- ^ a b Bland, Karina. "Ariz. woman journalist led way for next generation - including me". The Arizona Republic. Retrieved November 6, 2022.
- ^ a b Voss, Kimberly Wilmot (September 5, 2018). Re-Evaluating Women's Page Journalism in the Post-World War II Era: Celebrating Soft News. Springer. ISBN 978-3-319-96214-6.
- ^ Voss, Kimberly Wilmot; Speere, Lance (2007). "A Women's Page Pioneer: Marie Anderson and Her Influence at the Miami Herald and Beyond". The Florida Historical Quarterly. 85 (4): 398–421. ISSN 0015-4113.
- ^ Guenin, Zena Beth (1973). "Women's Pages in Transition". California State University, Northridge.
- ^ Mills, Kay (1988). A Place in the News: From the Women's Pages to the Front Page. Dodd, Mead. p. 122. ISBN 978-0-396-08932-2.
- ^ Voss, Kimberly Wilmot (2021). Newspaper Fashion Editors in the 1950s and 60s: Women Writers of the Runway (PDF). Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-3-030-73624-8. OCLC 1268196506.