Anne O'Hare McCormick

Who was Anne O'Hare McCormick?

Anne O'Hare McCormick was a foreign news correspondent for the New York Times, in an era where the field was almost exclusively "a man's world". In 1937, she won the Pulitzer Prize for correspondence, becoming the first woman to receive a major category Pulitzer award. Born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, UK, in 1880, she was educated in the United States at the College of Saint Mary of the Springs in Columbus, Ohio. After graduating she became an associate editor for the Catholic Universe Bulletin. Her 1911 marriage to Dayton businessman Francis McCormick, an importer and executive of the Dayton Plumbing Supply Company, led to frequent travels abroad, and her career as a journalist became more specialized.

In 1921, she approached The New York Times about the prospect of becoming a freelance contributor from Europe, to cover stories not already investigated by the Times' foreign reporters. The Times accepted, and McCormick provided the first in-depth reports of the rise of Benito Mussolini and the Fascist movement in Italy.