‘Women’s’ sections gave way to more-inclusive news

By Betty Brenner
Journal Staff Writer

Imagine your bridal photograph in the paper — as big as the lead photo on Page One.

A page from January 1953 showed off gowns Flint guests would wear to President Eisenhower's inaugural ball.

Imagine a reporter writing that your wedding was one of the most brilliant ever in the city.

An elite few in area history didn’t have to imagine; they could just pick up The Journal and see it in black and white.

Journal pages from 50 years or so ago show clearly how women’s roles and society have changed.

In those days several pages were devoted to “society” and, later, to “women’s news.”

By looking at those pages, the reader could tell who was considered part of Society with a capital “S.”

Weddings were described in great detail — but the amount of coverage depended on just who the bride or groom was.

In the late 1800s, for instance, the wedding of Eusebia Florence Bates and auto industry pioneer A.B.C. Hardy was described as “one of the most brilliant weddings recorded in the social annals of the city.”

The reception was held at a home at Crapo and Kearsley streets — a place the writer found most impressive: “The grounds were brilliantly illuminated by dozens of incandescent lights.”

In 1940, a five-column picture of Mrs. Hugh Putnam Rafferty accompanied the article on her wedding the day before. She was described as a “truly regal bride” who was married “in an impressive service.”

The article describes the bride’s dress, colors worn by attendants, flowers that decorated the altar, as well as decorations for the reception, the attire of the bride’s mother and the suit the new bride wore as she left on her honeymoon.

Articles on teas, engagements, parties, women’s clubs, social gatherings, anniversaries, people going traveling and even out-of-town visitors filled the section.

Many of the descriptions involved how women looked in their dresses. Just about every detail was covered, from the corsets to the shoes.

Who got the big stories?

In part it depended on where people lived in Flint, said Carolyn Dunlap Coulter, who worked in that department from 1959 to 1968. Those living in Woodcroft, south of Miller Road, or in the E. Court Street area were more likely to get favorable treatment.

But so did college graduates, she said, and those who were descendants of auto pioneers such as the Charles Stewart Mott family.

It was a time when old, prominent families held sway and their social lives were chronicled.

Joyce S. Cook

Joyce S. Cook, society and then women’s editor from 1938 to 1962, even made sure her descriptions of flowers and dresses at big weddings were accurate by going to the dressmaker and making a drawing or visiting the florist.

The name changed to women’s pages early in the 1960s, but the focus was altered entirely in later years for several reasons.

For one, more women began holding down jobs and their interests and needs changed, Coulter said.

For another, “The bosses wanted more metropolitan coverage, not so ‘small town’ like a weekly,” said her husband, Ralph Coulter, who retired as wire editor.

And many of the offspring of the old families moved away.

Some men read the section, but not many, Carolyn Coulter said.

Cookie Wascha, editor of today’s Tempo section, which succeeded the women’s section, prefers today’s lifestyle features.

“Although it’s fun to peek into the lifestyles of the rich and famous, I so much prefer being able to do features on people like a little girl badly burned as a toddler who is battling scars and some rejection in her first years of elementary school; parents of an autistic boy who is learning and adapting well beyond expectations; patients who spend much of their life in kidney dialysis; eight women who survived horrendous abuse by spouses and boyfriends; or a whole class of students who became our Class of 2000,” she said.

“It’s better to provide space on our pages to everyone — everyone with a story to tell — and most people have one if you look hard enough and ask the right questions.”

But Lois Sprague, 81, said she misses the old society page.

“It was kind of like watching that TV show about the rich and famous — you got to see how all the big people in town socialized and the descriptions of the events were just wonderful,” said Sprague, a longtime Journal reader. “I guess people don’t really care about that kind of thing nowadays.

“It’s kind of sad because it reminds you about an era that’s gone. It was a more elegant time then. I really miss it.”

Journal staff writer Marlon Vaughn contributed to this report. Religion Editor Betty Brenner started at The Journal in 1965. She can be reached at (810) 766-6332 or bbrenner@flintjournal.com.