Summer Series 2022: Origins - Jean Gaddy Wilson (NWMC, Part 1)

Established in 1987 and celebrating its 35th anniversary in 2022, the National Women and Media Collection documents the roles women have played in media fields, as employees and leaders as well as subjects of news coverage, how those roles have altered over time, and how attitudes of and towards women have changed. The Collection includes records of women’s organizations and professional and personal papers of women journalists, editors, book authors, newspaper and magazine publishers, media company CEOs, journalism and mass communication educators, press secretaries, and public relations personnel, as well as radio, television, and film producers and personalities. To celebrate this important anniversary, and coincide with the opening of the new National Women and Media exhibit in the Wenneker Family Corridor Gallery at the Center for Missouri Studies, the Our Missouri Podcast dedicates its Summer Series to the women featured within the collection and exhibit, as well as the journalists, scholars, archivists, and librarians who have pioneered and preserved its materials. This episode features excerpts from an oral history with Jean Gaddy Wilson recorded in 2022 for the National Women and Media Collection.

Episode Image: Marjorie Paxson, Jean Gaddy Wilson, and Nancy Lankford, date unknown [Marjorie B. Paxson Papers (C4078), SHSMO]

About the Guest: Jean Gaddy Wilson is a professional consultant who has spoken on five continents and who spent fourteen years as a Professor of Journalism at the University of Missouri. She is a co-author, along with Brian S. Brooks and James L. Pinson, of the journalism textbook “Working With Words: A Handbook for Media Writers and Editors.” She is the founder of New Directions for News, an innovation think tank, at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, and her work led to the founding of the Journalism and Women Symposium (JAWS) and the International Women’s Media Foundation. She co-founded the National Women and Media Collection with Gannett publisher Marj Paxson and the Western Historical Manuscript Collection (now affiliated with the State Historical Society of Missouri).