Last Friday, Hunter, Dr. Cole and I decided to make the trek to the Johns Hopkins University library in order to search the Baltimore Sun Historical Archive (which Loyola doesn’t have access to…) Both Hunter and I were assigned women in the Club to research that were some of the first female reporters for the Sun and we were very excited to see what we could find.

May Garretson Evans is accredited as being the first female reporter for the Baltimore Sun and there have been many articles written about her and her life. She has published two books about music and another book with her sister, Bessie Evans, about American Indian Dance Steps. I knew all of this going into the JHU library and was expecting to find an abundance of articles written by her. Unfortunately I was wrong.

I guess being the first female reporter in a rather large newspaper has its downsides. I was able to find one article stating Miss Evans as the writer. It was surprisingly about Edgar Allan Poe (these women are obsessed!) I believe that she wrote other stories or at least reported on other stories but because of her controversial employment was not given credit. In an article in the Sun written in 1947 she is quoted as saying,

My adventure into the newspaper field created a commotion. At first I was more interviewed then interviewing. I had to explain myself everywhere in that gaslight period. It was a perfect nuisance.

May Garretson Evans is just another example of some of the women in this Club that were venturing into territories previously unoccupied by women. Miss Evans along with Mrs. Christine Ladd Franklin remind me that these women’s stories need to be told so they can get the recognition they deserve.  I hope that over the course of this semester I will be able to find more of Miss Evan’s writing so that she can received the credit that is due.