Anne O'Hare McCormick (1880–1954)

Anne Elizabeth O’Hare was born in England, and emigrated with her family to the USA during early childhood. She was raised in Columbus, Ohio. After graduation from college, she became an associate editor for the weekly Catholic Universe Bulletin in Cleveland. In 1910, she married Francis J. McCormick, a businessman and engineer, and traveled abroad frequently with him. Although she had no formal journalism training, Anne O'Hare McCormick began writing articles for The New York Times Sunday Magazine and the Ladies' Home Journal. She published The Hammer and the Scythe: Communist Russia Enters the Second Decade, describing trips to the Soviet Union, in 1928. In 1936, she was the first woman invited to serve on the editorial board of The New York Times. Her dispatches from Europe that year were recognized with the Pulitzer Prize in 1937, making her the first woman to win the Pulitzer for foreign correspondence. In 1939, with World War II looming, Anne O'Hare McCormick spent five months in 13 different countries, speaking with political leaders and ordinary citizens in order to report on the growing crisis. After the war, Anne O'Hare McCormick was appointed a U.S. delegate to the first UNESCO conference at the United Nations. Among other awards, she received The New York Evening Post Medal, 1934; the American Woman's Association Medal, 1939; the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Medal, 1941, and the Gold Medal of the National Institute of Social Science.