Margaret Dixon

Who was Margaret Dixon?

Margaret Richardson Dixon, usually known as Maggie Dixon, was perhaps the most influential woman journalist of 20th century Louisiana. She was the managing editor of her state's capital city newspaper, the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate, from 1949 until her death some two decades later. She was also an active Democrat who championed prison reform, assistance to the mentally ill, and organized labor. She once addressed a Louisiana AFL-CIO convention at the invitation of president Victor V. Bussie of Baton Rouge.

Dixon was born in New Orleans to Roger W. Richardson and the former Josephine Pettit. In 1928, she obtained her bachelor's degree from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. That same year, she married J. Muncia Dixon.

She began her career in 1928 as a reporter for the defunct Baton Rouge State-Times, an afternoon daily. In 1931, she moved to the morning New Orleans Times-Picayune as women's editor and general assignment reporter, a position that she held until 1937.