Ruth
Cowan was
born in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1902. After graduating from the University
of Texas in 1923 she taught at Main Avenue High School in San Antonio
(1924-27).
In 1928
Cowan became a reporter for the San Antonio
Evening News. The following year she joined the United
Press in Chicago. She covered gangster
stories and reported on the trial of Al
Capone.
Cowan moved
to Washington in 1940. Denied the
right to attend the press conferences of President Franklin
D. Roosevelt.
She appealed to Eleanor
Roosevelt
who then
decided to hold her own press conferences with women reporters.
In 1942
Cowan was sent to London to report on the
Home Front in the Second
World War. She then moved on to North
Africa but after four months in Algeria
she returned to England.
During
the Normandy invasion Cowan reported from
hospital ships caring for the Allied wounded. Later she interviewed
several military leaders including Dwight
D. Eisenhower,
Omar Bradley and George
Patton.
After marrying
the politician, Bradley D. Nash, in 1956, Cowan
retired from journalism.
(1)
Ruth Cowan, Associated Press (23rd June, 1944)
Two fighters escorted us toward French fields neat and green, and
we landed sharply on a strip laid down by detachments of this same
transport group.
We were approached at once
by soldiers curious about the new arrivals. They were tired and grim,
saying little at first, yet wanting to talk. Their field uniforms
were dusty, but they had found time to shave. They watched and listened
as you wrote one man's name and experiences in a notebook.
"Will the story be
in my hometown paper?" was the closest any of them came to asking
anything outright. They asked that because it is a way of letting
the homefolk know they are safe.
It was the same with both
men and officers. Among them were seaman second class John Dolan,
West Orange, New Jersey; Capt. Robert Mulligan, Capron, 111.; and
Warrant Officer Curtin Ferrell, Pontotoc, Mississippi.
Home things come first
in their conversations with a woman correspondent, but they also are
eager to know all about the flying bombs the Germans have been firing
into southern England. Trucks come for the planes' loads and hurry
off. Ambulances rumble up. Patients are quickly transferred to the
planes-usually about 24 litters to each one - and the planes take
off. It is not safe to linger.
Well-camouflaged is the
tent of Major Milton Evans, Gulfport, Mississippi, Commander of Advance
Headquarters, reached by crossing a clover field. You stay in the
path resisting the temptation to pick beautiful red poppies. There
is a dull boom-and dust thrown high on the beach shows why. Mines
are still being found.
(2)
Helen Thomas, letter to Ruth Cowan (1987)
I think we have a special
bond fighting the good fight for women in journalism. You were always
a star to look up to. I still think that newswomen of that era were
outstanding, unique and strong. We had to be.
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