Abstract
On February 25, 1947, the New York Times ran a nine-paragraph obituary commemorating the life and accomplishments of journalist, editor, and author Elizabeth Garver Jordan. Noting Jordan’s influence at the helm of Harper’s Bazaar from 1900–1913 and her enduring friendships with Henry James and William Dean Howells, the obituary revealed that Jordan’s career began 57 years earlier when she wrote for the New York World and its “True Stories of the News” daily articles that “chronicle[d]” the “humorous to the deeply tragic” everyday dramas of New York and “took their author into every phase of the city’s life.”1
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Michael Schudson, Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers (New York: Basic Books, 1978), 89. See also Michael Robertson, Stephen Crane, Journalism, and the Making of Modern American Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997); and David Mindich, Just the Facts: How “Objectivity” Came to Define American Journalism (New York: New York University Press, 1998) for rich accounts of these two journalistic styles and the emergence of “objectivity” as a primary news principle.
Mathew Arnold, “Up to Easter,” Nineteenth Century 21 (1887): 638.
Tollen Smith, “New Journalism,” Life 30.775 (October 28, 1897): 345.
World headlines from January 4, 1898; January 7, 1889; January 9, 1889; January 16, 1889; February 10, 1889; and March 10, 1889.
Elizabeth Jordan, Three Rousing Cheers: An Autobiography (New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1938), 49.
Richard Harding Davis, “Gallegher: A Newspaper Story,” Scribner’s Magazine 8.2 (August 1890): 156–72.
Arthur Lubow, The Reporter Who Would Be King (New York: Scribner, 1992), 2.
Richard Harding Davis, “Our Green Reporter,” New York Evening Sun, November 2, 1889.
A complete compilation of newspaper fictions is not available, but some titles (in addition to those by Davis and Jordan) include Francis C. Regal, “By Telephone,” Lippincott’s Magazine (January 1895): 126–35; Arthur McEwen, “The Vengeance of Pendleton,” Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine 26.153 (September 1895): 283–91; H. Pearson, “A Newspaper Woman’s Romance,” Peterson Magazine 6.2 (February 1896): 218–21; Ernest Shriver, “A Frustrated ‘Scoop,’” Peterson Magazine 6.5 (May 1896): 531–35; Eva Madden, “The Only Woman’s Page,” Youth’s Companion 72.18 (May 5, 1898): 213–14; John A’Becket, “Miss Upton’s First ‘Assignment,’” Youth’s Companion 72.34 (August 25, 1898): 390–91; Jesse Lynch Williams, The Stolen Story and Other Newspaper Stories (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1899); Robert Barr, Jennie Baxter, Journalist (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1900); Kate Masterson, “The Love-Making of Loo,” Smart Set 2.3 (September 1, 1900): 99–104; Ellen Olney Kirk, Good-Bye, Proud World (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1904); Mrs. Fremont Older, The Giants (New York: D. Appleton, 1905); Miriam Michelson, A Yellow Journalist (New York: D. Appleton, 1905) and Anthony Overman (New York: Doubleday, Page, 1906); William Budd Trites, John Cave (London: A. Treherne, 1909); Josephine Simrall, “Her Best Stuff,” Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine 89.530 (February 1912): 298–307; Thomas T. Hoyne, “The Ego of the Metropolis,” Life 66.1710 (August 5, 1915): 234–35; George Ethelbert Walsh, “Jane Eddington, Editor,” National Stockman and Farmer, serialized December 25, 1915, through February 26, 1916; Hartford Powel Jr. and Russell Gordon Carter, “Broken Wings,” Youth’s Companion, serialized August 1928 through January 1929; Malcolm Ross, Penny Dreadful (New York: Coward-McCann, 1929); Mildred Gilman, Sob Sister (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1931).
“Collections of Short Stories,” Literary World 29.9 (April 30, 1898): 141.
Hinton Gilmore, “Hints for Fiction Writers,” Life 60.1573 (December 19, 1912): 2500.
“Puzzles,” Independent 50.2579 (May 5, 1898): 41. Sample reviews include John Corbin, “Clever Short Stories,” Book Buyer 16.3 (April 1, 1898): 254; “Cosmopolitan Literary Juggling,” Life 31.800 (April 7, 1898): 298; Review of Tales of the City Room, Critic 29.843 (April 16, 1898): 265; “Collections of Short Stories,” Literary World 29.9 (April 30, 1898): 141; “The Library,” Art Interchange 40.5 (May 1, 1898): 121; “New Books,” Interior 29.1459 (May 12, 1898): 598; Review of Tales of the City Room, Bookman 7.6 (August 1898): 524.
See Howard Good, The Journalist as Autobiographer (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1993), 73; Maurine H. Beasley and Shelia J. Gibbons, Taking their Place: A Documentary History of Women and Journalism (Washington, DC: American University Press, 1993), 10; and Marion Marzolf, Up from the Footnote: A History of Women Journalists (New York: Hastings House, 1977), 26. The first women’s press organization, the Ladies’ Press Club of Washington, DC, was formed in 1881. See Elizabeth V. Burt, ed., Women’s Press Organizations, 1881–1999 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000).
“The Happiest Woman in New York,” New York World, December 19, 1890. Elizabeth Jordan, “In the Case of Hannah Risser,” Harper’s Bazaar 36.8 (August 1902): 710–17.
“The Happiest Woman in New York,” NewYorkWorld, December 19, 1890. Construction on a new, 16-story World building—complete with dazzling gilt dome—on New York’s Park Row drew to completion in 1890, and the paper wasted no opportunity to extol the literal and symbolic superiority of the city’s tallest structure.
“Yesterday with the Coroners,” New York World, June 11, 1891; “Yesterday in the Tombs,” New York World, June 13, 1891.
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2013 Mark Canada
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Roggenkamp, K. (2013). Elizabeth Jordan, “True Stories of the News,” and Newspaper Fiction in Late-Nineteenth-Century Journalism. In: Canada, M. (eds) Literature and Journalism. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137329301_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137329301_6
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-45319-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-32930-1
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)