Anne Royall

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Anne Royall (June 11, 1769 — October 1, 1854), by some accounts the first professional woman journalist in the United States, was born Anne Newport in Baltimore, Maryland.

Anne grew up in the western frontier of Pennsylvania before her family migrated south to the mountains of western Virginia. There she met American Revolution major and freemason William Royall. Anne wed Royall in 1797, who introduced her to the works of Shakespeare and Voltaire. The couple lived comfortably until his death in 1812, which touched off litigation between Anne and Royall's relatives, who claimed his will was a forgery. After seven years, the will was nullified and Anne was left with just a small amount of money.

[edit] Years of Writing

Anne spent the next four years traveling around Alabama, writing letters to a friend about the evolution of the young state that were eventually turned into a manuscript published as Letters from Alabama. She also penned a novel called The Tennessean before setting off for Washington D.C..

She arrived in Washington in 1824 to petition for a federal pension as the widow of a veteran — under the pension law at the time, widows had to plead their cases before Congress. She remained unsatisfied until Congress passed a new pension law in 1848. Even then, her husband's family claimed most of her pension money.

While in Washington attempting to secure a pension, Anne caught President John Quincy Adams during one of his usual early morning baths in the Potomac River. The oft-told story that Anne gathered the president's clothes and sat on them until he answered her questions, earning her the first presidential interview ever granted to a woman, is, alas, apocryphal. ^[1]

Adams afterward supported Anne's petition for a pension. He also invited her to visit his wife, Louisa Adams, at their home in Washington, which she did. Mrs. Adams gave her a white shawl when she journeyed north to obtain proof of her husband's military service.

Afterward Anne toured New England, Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts, all the while taking copious notes and using her Masonic connections to help fund her travels.

In Boston, she stopped in on former President John Adams to give him an update on his son and daughter-in-law. Then in 1826, at age 57, she published her notes in a book titled Sketches of History, Life and Manners in the United States. Her previous manuscript The Tennessean would follow a year later.

Her books and public stances on issues caused a stir and earned her some powerful enemies. In 1829, Anne Royall returned to Washington, D.C. and began living on Capitol Hill, near a fire house. The firehouse, which had been built with federal money, had been allowing a small church to use its facilities for their services. Royall objected to their using the building as a blurring of the lines between church and state. She also claimed that some of the congregation's children began throwing stones at her windows. One member of the congregation began praying silently beneath her window and others visited her in an attempt to convert her, she claimed. Royall responded to their taunts with cursing and was arrested. She was charged with being a "public nuisance, a common brawler and a common scold," for which she was fined $10. Two reporters from Washington's newspaper, The National Intelligencer, paid the fine. Embarrassed by the incident, Royall left Washington to continue traveling.

Back in Washington in 1831, she published a newspaper from her home with the help of a friend, Sally Stack. The paper, Paul Pry, exposed political corruption and fraud. Sold as single issues, it contained her editorials, letters to the editor and her responses, and advertisements. Royall hired orphans to set the type and faced constant financial woes, which were exacerbated when postmasters refused to deliver her issues to subscribers. until her death at age 85 in 1854, bringing an end to her 30-year news career.

[edit] References

• Original text based on An Uncommon Scold by Cynthia Earman - Retrieved May 2004 from the Library of Congress' online archives
• Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848