write what you know

It must be the end of the month, because I spent an hour this afternoon filing articles and papers, and reshelving books. I like to pile things up around me as I work.

One of the articles I stopped to read as I was filing was Amy Lauter's "From Her Own Point of View: Rediscovering Rose Wilder Lane, Literary Journalist" (American Journalism, Winter 2007). Last year, Lauters published The Rediscovered Writings of Rose Wilder Lane, Literary Jouralist, which contains transcriptions of nineteen stories and articles that aren't ones people are usually familiar with. I was glad to see that there was only one (darn, I was so close!) that I hadn't seen in print before: "We Go to a Wedding" from Woman's Day magazine. At least I'd already gotten the typescript copy from Herbert Hoover. (Because, of course, these things are a contest of sorts, you know.)

Lauters article in American Journalism is an interesting companion piece. One thing that jumped out at me was this: "...Like many journalists of her day, [Rose] learned the work on the job." The first "writing" job Lauters mentions is Rose's stint at the Kansas City Post in 1910, perhaps because she was relying on resources from Herbert Hoover Library, and the earliest articles they have by Rose date from this period.

Actually, Rose had written for the San Francisco Call prior to her marriage, and while she was living with Bessie Beatty, who was also writing for the Call. Beatty, a Los Angeles native less than a year older than Rose, had started college in 1903, but left school her senior year to take a job with the Los Angeles Herald. Mainly a writer for the "Society" page, Beatty wrote about opera and theater, and she often performed herself on the stage. In 1906, Beatty took an assignment to cover a mine strike in Nevada, and she remained there a year, sending back stories which were published the following year as Who's Who in Nevada. She never graduated from college.

Fremont Older, editor of the San Francisco Bulletin, was impressed by Beatty's writing style and hired her as a reporter. In 1908, she left the Bulletin to work on the rival San Francisco Call.

In early 1908, the Call had started printing a Saturday supplement called the Junior Call, and Rose Wilder had a number of articles appear in it. The more-experienced Bessie Beatty was no longer a part of the "junior staff," and I got the impression from my research that the junior staff wasn't just learning by doing, but that they were receiving instruction from others. Indeed, Bessie has been called Rose's mentor in more than one scholarly publication, but usually in connection with their later time together when Rose worked as Beatty's assistant at the Bulletin.

Many of Rose's early stories are about telegraph operators and telegraphy, which makes sense, since the old adage has always been to "write what you know."

I've provided links to some of the early Rose Wilder and Rose Wilder Lane articles on my bibliography. These have been scanned by the Library of Congress.

How interesting to see the "Rose Wilder" byline the month before her marriage to Gillette Lane, then her "Rose Wilder Lane" byline afterwards! [Btw, the bit of article shown above is from November 22, 1908.]
- posted by pioneergirl at 9:21 PM