Listen, world! : how the intrepid Elsie Robinson became America's most-read woman

Listen, world! How the intrepid Elsie Robinson became America's most-read woman

Julia Scheeres

Book - 2022

"At 35, Elsie Robinson feared she'd lost it all. She was reeling from a hostile divorce to a wealthy man that played out in tabloids across the country and she faced an uncertain future as the single mother of a chronically-ill son. She had no clear means of financial support, no college education or training. She'd hit a wall. At a time when it was thought that a woman's highest calling was to become a wife and mother, Elsie hungered for a different kind of life. She dreamed of becoming a professional writer and sacrificed everything in pursuit of a career in letters, going so far as to work a California gold mine to pay the bills. Through it all, she wrote-everything from features to essays to fiction. When the mine sh...ut down, she moved to San Francisco in 1918-at the tail end of a world war and an influenza pandemic. Borrowing money to buy a pen and paper, she created a mock-up for a children's column, then barged into the Oakland Tribune to thrust it into the hands of the managing editor. He hired her on the spot. From there, her popular children's column led to a nationally-syndicated column for adults that ran six days a week for more than 30 years and had 50 million readers. She became the highest-paid female columnist employed by William Randolph Hearst, who personally edited her copy and negotiated her contracts. Told with drama and cinematic detail by bestselling author Julia Scheeres and award-winning journalist Allison Gilbert, Listen, World! is the first biography of this indefatigable woman, capturing what it means to take a gamble on happiness, stumble a few times, and ultimately land on your feet"--

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BIOGRAPHY/Robinson, Elsie
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Location Call Number   Status
2nd Floor BIOGRAPHY/Robinson, Elsie Checked In
Subjects
Robinson, Elsie, > 1883-1956.
Women journalists > United States > Biography.
Women authors > Biography.
Biographies.
Genres
Biographies
Published
New York, NY : Seal Press, Hachette Book Group 2022.
Language
English
Main Author
Julia Scheeres (author)
Other Authors
Allison Gilbert (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
ix, 338 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9781541674356
  • Authors' Note
  • Introduction
  • 1. Benicia
  • 2. Home
  • 3. Romance
  • 4. Northfield
  • 5. Marriage
  • 6. Awakening
  • 7. Art
  • 8. Hornitos
  • 9. Typewriter
  • 10. San Francisco
  • 11. Oakland
  • 12. Listen, World!
  • 13. St. Luke's
  • 14. Sonora
  • Epilogue
  • Remembering Elsie
  • Photos, Editorial Cartoons, and More
  • Poems
  • Pain
  • I Build Happiness
  • Acknowledgments
  • Research Note
  • Notes
  • Index
Review by Booklist Review

In this biography of journalist Elsie Robinson, whose daily syndicated column for Hearst Communications was read by 20-million Americans between 1921 and 1956, Scheeres and Gilbert include excerpts from her various writings to show how she cultivated such extraordinary success. Born in 1883 in a small California town, Robinson struggled against the limits of her working-class family and the sexism of the era to obtain an education. Seeking financial security, she wed a visiting widower from the East Coast, but was soon trapped in a loveless marriage and ended up fleeing with her son to a mining camp. A divorce followed. Her doomed romance became fodder for sensational magazine stories until she talked her way into a job with the Oakland Tribune, and her career finally began. The authors document all these early travails before turning to Robinson's professional success, which eventually led to her becoming the highest paid female writer at Hearst. A fascinating topic and solid biography that should please women's history fans.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Memoirist Scheeres (Jesus Land) and journalist Gilbert (Covering Catastrophe) deliver a page-turning biography of Elsie Robinson (1883--1956), a prominent 20th-century journalist and cartoonist. Focusing on the first 50 years of her life, the authors paint a vivid picture of the challenges Robinson faced: after leaving a repressed and loveless marriage in Vermont, Robinson returned with her young, asthmatic son to her California roots, where she worked as a gold miner and then, faced with near starvation, found a job writing a weekly children's column for the Oakland Tribune. Robinson eventually worked her way up to become the highest-paid newswoman in the Hearst empire through her syndicated column "Listen World!" The authors spotlight her fights against racism, capital punishment, and antisemitism, as well as her frankness in her belief that women should have satisfying lives that consist of more than household drudgery ("If your conception of woman's highest duty is to be a vacuum cleaner, be one, but don't grumble if your family parks you behind the kitchen door," Robinson wrote in one column). The account is enlivened with copious excerpts from Robinson's column and her memoir, all of which bring home her firebrand style. This entertaining account delivers. (Sept.)

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