NOTES
- The lack of recognition of black women journalists has been acknowledged for more than a century. See Lucy Wilmot Smith, “Woman's Number,” The Journalist, 26 January 1889, 4. Also see Maurine H. Beasley, “Historiographical Essay, Women in Journalism: Contributors to Male Experience or Voices of Feminine Expression?,” American Journalism 7 (Winter 1990): 54; Maurine H. Beasley and Sheila Gibbons, Women in Media: Documentary Source Book (Washington, D.C.: Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press, 1977), vii, 20; Kay Mills, A Place in the News: From the Women's Pages to the Front Page (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1988), 176.
- See, for example, Gerda Lemer, ed., Black Women in White America (New York: Vintage, 1973); Angela Davis, Women, Race and Class (New York: Random House, 1981); Paula Giddings, When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Class in America (New York: Morrow, 1984); Deborah Gray White, Ar'n't I a Woman ? Female Slaves in the Plantation South (New York: W. W. Norton, 1985).
- The increased scholarship regarding African-American women journalists is shown by comparing the space committed to African-American women in five books about American women working in journalism. In 1936, Ishbel Ross, Ladies of the Press: The Story of Women in Journalism by an Insider (New York: Harper) mentioned no African-American women. In 1977, Marion Marzolf, Up From the Footnote: A History of Women Journalists (New York: Hastings House) devoted seven pages (2526, 90–92, 105, 168) to African-American women. In 1980, Jean E. Collins, She Was There: Stories of Pioneering Women Journalists (New York: Julian Messner) included sixteen pages (103–19) on an African-American woman. In 1983, Madelon Golden Schilpp and Sharon M. Murphy, Great Women of the Press (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press) included twelve pages (121–33) on an African-American woman. In 1988, Mills, Place in the News, included a twenty-two page chapter (174–96) on “Women of Color.”
- None of the three major journalism history textbooks—Edwin Emery and Michael Emery, The Press and America: An Interpretive History of the Mass Media, 6th ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1988); Jean Folkerts and Dwight L. Teeter, Jr., Voices of a Nation: A History of Media in the United States (New York: Macmillan, 1989); or W. David Sloan, James G. Stovall, and James D. Startt, The Media in America: A History (Scottsdale, Az.: Publishing Horizons, 1989)—mentions Dunnigan. Nor do Beasley and Gibbons, Women in Media; Collins, She Was There;, Marzolf, Up From the Footnote-, Ross, Ladies of the Press; or Schilpp and Murphy, Great Women of the Press. In Place in the News, Mills states only that Dunnigan was one of the women reporters banned from the National Press Club floor and relegated to its balcony. See 101. Both editions of the major history of the African-American press, Roland E. Wolseley, The Black Press, U.S.A. (Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1971 and 1990), also fail to mention Dunnigan.
- There has been little scholarship regarding the common experiences or circumstances of black women journalists. Most of the works that contain information about African-American women pursuing the craft simply sketch their lives, providing no analysis of the material. In addition, these works generally focus on African-American women journalists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The earliest and most extensive such work is “Afro-American Women in Journalism,” a chapter in I. Garland Penn, The Afro-American Press and Its Editors (Springfield, Mass.: Willey, 1891), 366–427. Penn's chapter includes sketches of twenty women but is written in a positivist tone with no introduction or analysis. The most substantive analysis of African-American women journalists as a group is Gloria Wade-Gayles, “Black Women Journalists in the South, 1880–1905: An Approach to the Study of Black Women's History,” Callaloo 4 (Feb.-Oct. 1981): 138–52. Wade-Gayles's analysis, however, is limited to black women in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
- The Alice Allison Dunnigan Papers are held in the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, where Dunnigan deposited them in 1977; the Barnett Papers are held at the Chicago Historical Society. Alice Allison Dunnigan, A Black Woman's Experience: From Schoolhouse to White House (Philadelphia: Dorrance, 1974). Dunnigan's interview was conducted by Marcia Greenlee on 7 April 1977 as part of the Black Women Oral History Project of the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College. Robert Dunnigan lives in Brandywine, Md.
- For the current status of the study of women in journalism history, see Susan Henry, “Changing Media History Through Women's History” in Women in Mass Communication: Challenging Gender Values, Pamela J. Creedon, ed. (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1989), 34–35, 52; Catherine Mitchell, “The Place of Biography in the History of News Women,” American Journalism 7 (Winter 1990): 27–29. See also Cathy Covert, “Some Thoughts on Research,” Journalism History 1 (Spring 1974): 32-33; Henry, “Changing Media History,” 40–41; Zena Beth McGlashan, “Women Witness the Russian Revolution: Analyzing Ways of Seeing,” Journalism History 12 (Summer 1985): 54-61; Mary Ann Yodelis Smith, “Research Retrospective: Feminism and the Media,” Communication Research 9 (January 1982): 145–60.
- For more on ANP, see Lawrence Hogan, A Black National News Service: The Associated Negro Press and Claude Barnett, 1919–1945 (Cranbury, N.J.: Associated University Presses, 1984); Richard Beard and Cyril Zoerner, “The Associated Negro Press: Its Founding, Ascendancy, and Demise,” Journalism Quarterly 46 (Spring 1969): 47–52.
- The best sources of details about Dunnigan's life are her autobiography, Black Woman's Experience, and Robert L. Johns, “Alice Dunnigan,” in Jessie Carney Smith, ed., Notable Black American Women (Detroit: Gale Research, 1992), 301–03.
- Dunnigan, Black Woman's Experience, 43; Dunnigan oral history, 4.
- Dunnigan, Black Woman's Experience, 27–28.
- Ibid., 72, 85.
- When Dunnigan began teaching in 1924, the average teaching salary nationwide was $1,227. When she left teaching in 1942, the average salary nationwide was $1,507. Ibid., 194; Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975), 375.
- Dunnigan to John Hein, her employer at the Council on Youth Opportunity, 31 Oct. 1969, Dunnigan Papers; Dunnigan to Barnett, 26 Aug. 1947, Barnett Papers.
- Dunnigan oral history, 12, 16, 18; Black Woman's Experience, 182.
- Author's interview with Robert Dunnigan, 28 Oct. 1989, Brandywine, Md.
- See, for example, Giddings, When and Where I Enter, 231–58.
- Dunnigan, Black Woman's Experience, 187.
- See, for example, David M. Potter, “American Women and American Character,” in Don E. Fehrenbacher, ed., History and American Society: Essays of David M. Potter (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), 278–303.
- Dunnigan letter to Barnett, 30 Jan. 1948, Barnett Papers. In 1949, African-American women in the District of Columbia earned an average annual salary of $1,395. See U.S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Population: 1950, Volume 2: Characteristics of the Population (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1952), 9–101.
- Barnett to Reid Jackson, 2 March 1946, Barnett Papers.
- James H. Baker to Barnett, 18 Dec. 1946, Barnett Papers.
- Dunnigan to Barnett, 30 Jan. 1948, Barnett Papers.
- Barnett to Dunnigan, 28 Jan. 1948, Barnett Papers.
- Dunnigan to Barnett, 30 Jan. 1948, Barnett Papers.
- Barnett to Dunnigan, 30 Aug. 1947, Barnett Papers.
- Barnett to Dunnigan, 23 June 1948, Barnett Papers.
- Dunnigan to Barnett, 12 July 1948 and 8 Sept. 1948, Barnett Papers; Dunnigan to Barnett, undated, probably fall 1947, Barnett Papers.
- Dunnigan to Barnett, undated, probably early 1948, Barnett Papers.
- Dunnigan, “Liberals March In D.C., Seek Action,” Atlanta Daily World, 5 Jan. 1947, 1.
- The Standing Committee of Correspondents determines which reporters are accredited. Minutes of committee meetings are held in the Senate Press Gallery in the U.S. Capitol. Minutes for 22 Jan. 1947 state that Dunnigan requested and was sent an application.
- Minutes, Standing Committee of Correspondents, 12 Dec. 1946 and 4 March 1947. Senate rules then specified that the press galleries were available only to reporters who sent their stories by telegraph. Standing Committee members rejected Lautier's application, they said, because he sent his stories by mail.
- Two hundred documents relevant to Lautier's application and eventual accreditation are held in the Legislative Archives Division of the National Archives in Washington. During the 18 March 1947 hearing, Lautier argued that he often sent stories by telegraph.
- Minutes, Standing Committee of Correspondents, 17 June 1947.
- Dunnigan to Barnett, 26 Aug. 1947, Barnett Papers.
- Barnett to Dunnigan, 7 Aug. 1948, Barnett Papers.
- Dunnigan to Barnett, 25 June 1948, Barnett Papers.
- Frank Marshall Davis to Dunnigan, 29 April 1947, 20 May 1947, 30 July 1947, Barnett Papers.
- Barnett to Dunnigan, 22 Feb. 1947, Barnett Papers.
- Dunnigan to Barnett, undated, probably summer 1948, Barnett Papers.
- Dunnigan to Barnett, 21 June 1948, Barnett Papers.
- Dunnigan to Barnett, undated, probably summer 1948, Barnett Papers.
- Doris Fleeson of the Washington Star accompanied the president but went only as far as Omaha. [Dunnigan, Black Woman's Experience, 232.]
- Dunnigan, “Prejudiced MP Given Reprimand for Bias,” Washington Afro-American, 19 June 1948, 3.
- Dunnigan, Black Woman's Experience, ii.
- Dunnigan, “Veterans Put Out Six-Foot Burning Cross in NE Area,” Washington Afro-American, 3 April 1948, 1; no coverage of the cross-burning incident appeared in the Post or Star between 24 March and 10 April 1948, the two weeks before and after Dunnigan's story was published.
- Dunnigan, “Covenanters Seek to Evict Family,” Washington Afro-American, 3 April 1948, 2; no coverage of the eviction effort appeared in the Post or Star between 24 March and 10 April 1948.
- Dunnigan, “‘You're a Black Son-of-a-Bitch’ Shouts Georgia Congressman,” Oklahoma City Black Dispatch, 12 Aug. 1950, 1; “Policemen Restrain Profane Lawmaker,” Houston Informer, 12 Aug. 1950, 1.
- The incident took place at a hearing 11 Aug. 1950, but neither the Post nor Star mentioned it in 11, 12, or 13 Aug. 1950 editions.
- Dunnigan, “‘I'd Do It Again,’ Says Fiery Ga. Congressman in Discussing Attack on Patterson,” Oklahoma City Black Dispatch, 19 Aug. 1950, 1.
- Dunnigan to Bamett, 21 Nov. 1947, Bamett Papers.
- Dunnigan, “Martinsville Seven Ask Parents to Keep Praying,” Atlanta Daily World, 16 July 1950, 1.
- Dunnigan, “On the Spot Investigation of the Frame Up of Seven Negroes Condemned to Die on a Phony Rape Charge,” Daily Worker, 17 July 1950, 5; “Letters from the Virginia Death Cells,” People's Daily World, 21 July 1950, 8.
- FBI memo from the Washington Field Office, 26 March 1951, held at FBI Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
- FBI memo from the Washington Field Office, 15 June 1961, held at FBI Headquarters, Washington, D C.
- Alice A. Dunnigan file, FBI Headquarters, Washington, DC.
- The Capital Press Club presented the Newsman's Newsman award. The club, founded in 1943, was composed of African-American reporters working for Washington news organizations.
- Dunnigan typed recollection, Women's National Press Club files, National Press Club Archives, Washington, D.C., 6.
- Dunnigan, Black Woman's Experience, 257–58.
- Dunnigan's personal recollections are the only documentation for the 1947 events involving her and Craig. The Elizabeth May Craig Papers at the Library of Congress do not mention Dunnigan. In general, Craig was a socially progressive woman. As a member of the Standing Committee of Correspondents, for example, Craig favored Lautier's accreditation. See minutes of the Standing Committee of Correspondents, 12 Dec. 1946.
- Washington Evening Star, “Negro Seeks to Join Women's Press Club,” 8 March 1955, C-4.
- Dunnigan to Truman, 22 March 1949, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, Independence, Mo.; Dunnigan to Bamett, 5 Nov. 1948, Bamett Papers.
- Dunnigan, Black Woman's Experience, 552–60.
- Bamett to Dunnigan, 1 May 1961, Bamett Papers.
- In 1960, the average Washington worker earned $320 per month. See U.S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Population: 1960, Volume 2, Characteristics of the Population (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1962), Sect. 10, p. 174.
- Dunnigan, Black Woman's Experience, 581.
- Dunnigan to Bamett, 9 Aug. 1960, Bamett Papers.
- Dunnigan, Black Woman's Experience, 586.
- Ibid., 588–90.
- Ibid., 639–40.
- Ibid., 610–15.
- Ibid., 616–21.
- Ibid., 662.
- Author's interviews with Robert Dunnigan, 10 April 1990, and Ethel L. Payne, 14 Feb. 1990. Payne, who reported for the Chicago Defender from 1951 to 1978, became the second African-American woman to receive Washington press credentials.
- Dunnigan, Black Woman's Experience, 233, 234, 309.
- Ibid., 195.
- Dunnigan oral history, 17.
- Author's interview with Marcia Greenlee, 22 Oct. 1989, in Washington, D C.
- Dunnigan, “Reminiscence: How the Washington Press Club Became Integrated,” Washington Living, March 1983, 10.
- “Reporter Alice Allison Dunnigan Dies,” Washington Post, 8 May 1983, C-7; “Alice Dunnigan, Noted News Woman, Dies At 77,” Jet, 23 May 1983, 42.
- Lemer, The Majority Finds Its Past: Placing Women in History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 145–59. See also Mitchell, “Place of Biography,” 25-26.