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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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Also, it was a period of great unemployment in the newspaper business, as well as every other business. There were a lot of newspaper man out of work. The result had been that a number of them were working as free-lancers, as they called it. That is, they would get a story, dig for it, get what they called an angle or sidelight on something, and then try to sell the story. There were a great many of them in Washington attempting to pick up a story.

There were also women on the papers, of whom there had previously been hardly any in Washington. Women had practically all been society reporters. They just told their readers in the West and South what Mrs. Jones wore at a dinner or reception - that kind of what I call” hick” newspaper reporting. Who cares what Mrs. Jones wore? But there's a hick type of mind and newspaper that wants it. Most news women who had been in Washington had been that type of reporter.

However, all women who worked for newspapers had had an unusually rough deal in the unemployment crisis, because women were let go before men. The result was that a lot of women who had been attached to Wichita Falls papers, Oshkosh papers, small town papers, and so on, were doing the same thing. They came to Washington to see if they could get a story.

Mrs. Roosevelt heard about this. She heard about it





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