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

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.

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.)