American Queenmaker: How Missy Meloney Brought Women into Politics

Historian Des Jardins (Walter Camp: Football and the Modern Man) unearths the power and influence of early 20th-century editor Marie “Missy” Mattingly Meloney (1878–1943) in this competent and purposeful biography. Born in Kentucky, Meloney came of age in Washington, D.C., where her widowed mother opened a school for girls. Despite lifelong health problems, Meloney became a newspaper reporter at the turn of the century. After marrying fellow reporter William Brown Meloney IV and working part-time as she raised their son, Meloney became managing editor of Woman’s Magazine in 1914 and set out to replace the publication’s “twaddle” with articles written by experts in such varied fields as housekeeping, education, and world affairs. In subsequent editorships at the Delineator, the New York Herald Tribune Sunday Magazine, and This Week, Meloney helped newly enfranchised women become informed voters; cultivated professional relationships with presidents and first ladies; made Marie Curie a household name in the U.S.; and educated Americans about European fascism. Crediting her subject with “propell[ing] other women into prominence and women’s issues into public discourse,” Des Jardins makes a convincing case for Meloney’s crucial role in showing American women how to flex their political muscle. Readers interested in women’s issues will find this to be a valuable contribution to the subject. (Jan.)