Anonymous in Their Own Names: Doris E. Fleischman, Ruth Hale, and Jane Grant

Living in New York City in the first half of the 20th century, Fleischman, Hale, and Grant had much in common: they worked as journalists, married reluctantly, kept their maiden names, and spent most of their lives supporting their husbands’ careers. Fleischman was the backbone of Edward Bernays’s public relations activities, but never met with clients. Sacrificing her own career and ultimately her marriage, Ruth Hale helped make Heywood Broun an enormously successful journalist. With Harold Ross, Jane Grant cofounded the New Yorker, but fought to be compensated for her efforts. In addition, these women maintained complex households, where they entertained guests several times per week in the service of their husbands’ business interests. Henry, a professor emeritus of journalism at Cal State–Northridge, is at her best showing how these conflicted feminists balanced a multitude of professional and personal tasks. However, Henry makes each woman the subject of a minibiography, and this three-part separation proves as odd as the title, an allusion to their participation in the Lucy Stone League, which supported women’s efforts to keep their birth names. A chronological or thematic approach might have served her subjects better. Photos. (July)