Theodora Bean
American journalist (1871–1926)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Theodora Bean (March 26, 1871 – August 5, 1926), born Edna Belle Bean,[1] was an American journalist and suffragist. She was a founder and president of the Newspaper Women's Club of New York, and started her own news syndicate, the T-Bean Syndicate, shortly before her death.
March 26, 1871
Theodora Bean | |
|---|---|
Theodora Bean, from a 1926 publication | |
| Born | Edna Belle Bean March 26, 1871 |
| Died | August 5, 1926 (age 55) New York City |
| Occupation | Journalist |
Early life and education
Bean was born in Anoka, Minnesota, the daughter of Martin Van Buren Bean and Louisa Jane McFarlan Bean. Her mother was from Canada; her father was from Maine. Her father was a Union Army veteran of the American Civil War, and ran a hardware store. She attended Carleton College briefly, then moved to Chicago to begin a career in journalism.[2]
Career
Journalism
Bean was a reporter at the Chicago Daily News, and in that job interviewed Carrie Nation and covered women's clubs and sports.[3] She moved to New York City, and was Sunday editor for the Morning Telegraph; she also worked for the Evening Telegram. She profiled British singer Clara Butt in 1913,[4] and interviewed artist Beatrice Wood in 1917.[5] She was a founding member of the Newspaper Women's Club of New York in 1922,[6] and was president of the Club at the time of her death.[1] She mentored Louella Parsons in the details of newspaper work.[7] In 1925 she began the T-Bean Syndicate,[8][9] and recruited many fellow journalists to contribute, including Martha Coman, Benjamin De Casseres, Alice Rohe, and Delight Evans;[10] her death in 1926 ended that venture.[2]
Suffrage and other work
Bean marched in a unit with other women writers, including Mary Hunter Austin, Grace Gallatin Seton Thompson, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Katherine Leckie and Kate Jordan, in a 1911 suffrage parade,[11] and she interviewed Carrie Chapman Catt for the Morning Telegraph in 1912.[12] In 1915, she and others (including Fola La Follette and Alice Duer Miller) wore sandwich boards featuring suffrage arguments on the New York subway, to counter anti-suffrage advertising posters on the cars.[13] She appeared as herself in a silent film, Our Mutual Girl No. 22 (1914); Arthur Conan Doyle also made a cameo in that film.[14][15]
Publications
- "Bearding the Governor" (Harper's Weekly, 1908)[16]
- "Classic Grecian Knot the Latest Coiffure for Newport Belles and Other Fashion Leaders of 1908" (1908)[17]
- "Hobble skirt's Doom Foreseen; Be Patient, Ye Critical Men" (1911)[18]
- "The Decline of Courtesy" (1912)[19]
- "The Field, the Salon, and Politics; A Fact Story of a Remarkable Woman" (1912, profile of Anne de Rochechouart de Mortemart)[20]
- "Anna Case's Own Story; From Church Choir to Grand Opera" (1912)[21]
- "Too Tall for Opera—Butt!" (1913)[4]
- "Do Motherhood and Art Agree?" (1913, a profile of Louise Homer)[22]
- "'Women! Go to Work! Commands Alda Gatti" (1913)[23]
Personal life
"She was handsome, imperious, and abhorred sentiment," Ishbel Ross recalled of Bean in 1936. "She smoked cigars, carried a walking stick, and had a passion for detective stories."[3] Bean lived with writer and actress Marjorie Patterson.[24][25] Bean died in 1926, at the age of 55, after a surgery.[26] On the occasion, Nellie Revell wrote in Variety, "It is a loss that has descended with crushing force upon me and all her other personal friends."[27]