TITLE: Newspaper Titan: The Infamous Life and Monumental Times of Cissy Patterson
SPEAKER: Amanda Smith
EVENT DATE: 03/15/2012
FORMAT: Video + Captions
RUNNING TIME: 68 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript (link will open in a new window)
DESCRIPTION:
Amanda Smith discussed her Patterson biography, "Newspaper Titan: The Infamous Life and Monumental Times of Cissy Patterson." She was called the most powerful woman in America, surpassing first ladies Eleanor Roosevelt and Bess Truman; ambassador, writer, journalist and member of Congress Clare Boothe Luce; and New York Post owner and publisher Dorothy Schiff. Cissy Patterson was from a publishing family. Her grandfather was Joseph Medill--firebrand abolitionist, mayor of Chicago, editor-in-chief and principal owner of the Chicago Tribune, and one of the founders of the Republican Party, who delivered the crucial Ohio delegation to Abraham Lincoln at the convention of 1860. Cissy Patterson's brother, Joe Medill Patterson, started the New York Daily News. Her pedigree notwithstanding, Patterson did not come to publishing until shortly before her 49th birthday, in 1930, with almost no practical journalistic or editorial experience and a life out of the pages of Edith Wharton.
Speaker Biography: Amanda Smith is the editor of "Hostage to Fortune: The Letters of Joseph P. Kennedy." Her mother is former U.S. ambassador to Ireland, Jean Kennedy Smith.
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SERIES: Books & Beyond
