Gladys Montgomery Singer: Interview #6

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[Begin Tape 1, Side A]

Currie: I thought maybe we could start this morning with a little bit of how you got into journalism. I think it's an interesting choice for a woman from your background, which I would describe as a proper New England background, a woman whose father was a civil engineer, a chairman of the board of selectmen of Wellesley, Massachusetts, and whose mother was very much involved in her community. And so for a woman of your background, on graduating from Wellesley College in 1919, you made a diversion, I think. I wonder if you could start by talking about that.

Montgomery: Well, it seems to me that when you graduate from college, you end one chapter and you begin another. Well, in beginning mine, I didn't want to do the most obvious thing—teaching. I wanted to—well, I said, "Something different." Later I defined that as the most impossible "reporting," not having done any such thing. However, that was the goal that I chose and that was the goal that finally, with several detours, I accomplished.

Currie: Maybe we shouldn't spend too much time on the detours, but how did you first get an entrée into that goal? I believe it was through a newspaper advertisement.

Montgomery: First of all, I decided I had to teach until I had something more definite to go on. So for a year and a half, I taught—one year in Norwich, Connecticut, and a part of a year in Cranston, Rhode Island. The reason I didn't go any longer in Cranston, Rhode Island, was because I saw an ad in the paper. By that I mean my Townsman in my home town, saying that Roger Babson Reports was looking for a recent graduate to do a report in Washington, only one month allowance in time.

Well, I imagine that a seasoned reporter wouldn't be looking for a one-month job, but for me it was perfect. I did get the job, and I had an unusual happening on the way to my job in Washington. Mr. Babson, Roger Babson, was a well-known economist, and he did quite a number of lectures, so that when he came back and found that his office had hired what he called "a slip of a girl" to do a report for Babson in Washington, this was too much. I had gone to Washington already and was working on this when he had the office telephone and say to meet him at the University Club for dinner. I thought he was so nice to want to help me, but when I got there and hardly had the menu in my hand, he said, "You're fired."

Well, that was a blow. So my answer was, "Mr. Babson, I have a signed contract for one month, and I don't believe, fair as you are supposed to be, that you would not regard an official contract. So therefore, I am prepared to leave at your wish, but I believe I have two weeks left. I would like to use that writing my report."

"All right," he said. "Go ahead. But have your things planned to leave on the last day." Therefore, I was ready now for Washington.

Currie: And you finished that report quite successfully.

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in the fireplace, and she sat with a wastebasket. Now, in those days a wastebasket was a laundry basket, and this laundry basket was at her side. She was throwing in to the fire piece after piece, citations or parts of her writings. I said, "Oh, don't throw them away!"

And she said, "Yes." She said, "They're going." Finally, the book that she'd worked on for several years and had completed was the last thing to be tossed into the fire.

Currie: This was a novel she had written?

Montgomery: It was a novel that she had written, and I was just frozen when I thought of all those years, the things that she had cherished going up in smoke. Then I got to thinking of all the newsmen and women that I'd known who would say, "Well, one day I'm going to write a book." A few of them did, but most of the writing, if it didn't go in the fireplace, it went in the wastebasket.

Currie: Cora Rigby was with the Christian Science Monitor.

Montgomery: She was head of the bureau there, yes.

Currie: At one point you lived in her house, if I recall.

Montgomery: Yes, I did. She and her mother had a house on what's known as Hillyer Place, which was considered downtown. I was looking for a room. So I asked her if she knew any place I could get one, and she said, "Well, I have a room vacant right now. I think you'd like it, because it has a fireplace in it and it's a very nice room."

I said, "How much is it?" Well, I can't remember the figure she said, but I said, "Oh, no, I can't pay anything like that."

Anyhow, we settled it, and that's where I stayed until she died.

Currie: Also, didn't Cora Rigby introduce you to your first husband, A.J. Montgomery?

Montgomery: Well, she did introduce me to Monty, as we called him, who was at that time head of the Christian Science Monitor bureau.

Currie: So she became an important person in your life, not only professionally, but personally.

Montgomery: Yes.

Currie: Maybe we can get back a little bit now to the chronology. I think another important date when you were working for Babson was November 1921, the ceremony for the first unknown soldier to be buried at Arlington. I believe that was when President Harding gave a speech carried by telephone simultaneously to New York and San Francisco.

Montgomery: Yes. Actually, the unknown soldier event, I didn't need to cover for Babson, but I went on my own and it turned out to be a very moving speech that he made. But the point of it was that the telephone transmission was hurriedly put together so that at the time he was speaking in Arlington, one could hear him in New York and San Francisco. That was a first for that kind of transmission.

Currie: There was another first during the Harding Administration that I believe you covered, and your old friend Mr. Babson got involved in this, and that was the Limitation of Armaments Conference.

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Montgomery: In 1924 I married a young Scotsman who I had met through Cora Rigby in the Monitor. When I talked about Cora Rigby, there's one thing more I'd like to add, that in the National Press Club today the library has one room, the Cora Rigby Archives, which meant that she continues to be recognized for her outstanding achievements.

Currie: So in 1924 when you married A.J. Montgomery, you decided to leave Babson, is that correct?

Montgomery: Well, my husband didn't want me to keep on working. He said, "We have enough money to get along." At that time there was quite a move in urging women not to take jobs if they didn't need them. I did short-time public relations jobs and for a time I had a news bureau with a friend, but that took up too much time.

You might be interested in one example of a public relations job. That was at a convention for the American Association of University Women, who, of course, looked forward to being received by the president at the White House. At that time, the president was Calvin Coolidge. This I arranged, and I stood at the door as the president came out onto the lawn where the meeting was to take place. Turning to Mrs. Coolidge, he said, "Grace, who are these women, anyhow?" She gave him a little whisper, and he proceeded on to the podium, and opened his remarks by saying that he was happy to see these distinguished women here, who had done so much for their country and so on and so on, all full of praise, which always gave me a little laugh when I thought of his ignorance of the group as he approached.

Currie: It was some time, then, before you got back into journalism.

Montgomery: By the way, speaking of Grace Coolidge, I remember an invitation to go out on the presidential yacht, the Sequoia. The thing that amazed me was the invitation, handwritten by her press secretary, which said, "If it's raining, call and we'll postpone it to the next day." I thought how impossible it is now to change from one day to another.

Now, I interrupted your remarks.

Currie: Oh, not at all. I was just remarking that it was a little while before you got back into journalism. In fact, the beginning of World War II, if I'm not mistaken, you decided to get back into journalism full time. Is that correct?

Montgomery: Yes, it was.

Currie: How did you decide to do that?

Montgomery: I decided I'd call the head of the McGraw-Hill office in Washington, whom I knew from the time when I was covering press conferences at the White House, and ask him if he knew of any vacancy. Well, about that time, there were more and more opportunities for positions. He said, "There is a vacancy here, but I tell you, I doubt whether they'll take a woman for it, the magazines being the type they are. I don't know, but I'll try."

Well, I did get the position, and I was named one of the staff of the Washington office. But I was called an experiment. That "experiment" lasted eighteen years. [Laughter.] So it was quite an experiment.

Currie: So how did you start at the McGraw-Hill office? What was your first—

Montgomery: Let me see.

Currie: I think you had some miscellaneous—

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that, and I mention it now to show the sharp difference between a reporter's approach for a story and this one.

Currie: Also I believe you had a rule that you would get close to sources, but not too friendly. Is that an accurate—

Montgomery: Well, I just said I'd get acquainted with these people, but I wouldn't get too well acquainted. I would keep it so that it was always the object to get my story.

Currie: I guess some of the stories in electronics you covered during the war years were classified and secret. So then you received a transfer, I believe, to another magazine, Textile World.

Montgomery: It was not a transfer; it was an additional assignment. Electronics had grown by leaps and bounds, and much of it was very important to the military. So a large part of it was classified or, even beyond that, secret. So there wasn't a lot of material available on this subject right then. I was getting along very well until I got word from New York that they wanted to add Textile World magazine to my assignment, too. So I was not very enthused over it, because that meant different contacts. I didn't know much about textiles, but I hadn't known too much about electronics. But anyhow, to take on this and write a forecast article every month was what I did, and it turned out to be quite successful.

Another part of the reporting was to get a top name to do a signed article. At that time as top man for Textile World it would be Spencer Love, who was head of the textile clothing division of OPA. I secured from him an article which carried a lot of weight, discussing the textile problems in 1944. All in all, I enjoyed my work with Textile World because I could write more and all my articles were signed and they were front page, many of them, always prominently displayed with my name, which was a far cry from what I'd had in Electronics.

But when the end of the war came, then so did my forecast articles, because there was no need for any more forecasting. With the words of praise that were put in the New York records, I moved on to another subject. However, when we were getting mobilized for Korea, the then editor, a different one, wanted me to renew my work forecasting.

However, I didn't want to do it, because I had my eye on some research that was going on in atomic energy, and my editor was discussing with the ones in the Atomic Energy Commission whether it was too early to have a nuclear energy magazine.

Currie: So that was the beginning of Nucleonics magazine.

Montgomery: In 1947, the first issue of the first magazine for the public in this country in nuclear energy came out, entitled Nucleonics. It was about the size of Reader's Digest, and came out monthly.

I stayed on the masthead of Nucleonics as Washington co-editor with an engineer-scientist, Robert Coburn, for six years. Then the format of the magazine was changed. So that was the time when I left.

Currie: You were still at McGraw-Hill then, and you took various assignments after that?

Montgomery: Yes. At that time, all Washington editor titles were dropped. Then I took various assignments, yes.

Currie: I wonder if we could just go back and clarify, too, a forecast article, the kind of article you wrote for Textile World.

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event for all press, the National Press Club, the Women's National Press Club, the American Newspaper Club, the radio, TV, all joined for one reception for that occasion.

One thing I do want to say about that, the next day they had a reception and various ones were going up in line to speak and shake the hand of Queen Elizabeth. After I had gone through the line, I was standing next to one of the aides and I heard him say to his friend, "Oh," he said, "this is worth a guinea a minute." [Laughter.] So whenever I have any excitement, I always remember that it's worth a guinea a minute. I don't know if I should say it about this or not. [Laughter.]

Currie: You're not having a good time?

Montgomery: Yes, I'm really enjoying myself. [Laughter.]

Currie: I think before we close, I'd like you to talk about a couple of highlights of the last part of your career with McGraw-Hill. In 1952, I think you were invited by the government of Mexico.

Montgomery: Yes. President Miguel Aleman of Mexico wanted to show to the press of this country what he had accomplished in his six years of office, so a group that had gone there when he took over were invited, but it was decided to add four women to the group, so that made twenty in the group. It was a two-weeks' trip in which various industries and the Mexican government had participated in the cost. We went to visit various important points of interest.

When we got there, there was a blinding rain, and in my effort to get packed with everything, I had forgotten a raincoat. So with all the others with their raincoats, I was making the best I could getting along. The next morning when I got up, there was a package at the desk for me. When I opened it, here was a lovely, attractive raincoat and with it a card "compliments of the city of Monterey." I never knew who sent it, but the raincoat came to good use, I will say.

All right. We're through.

Currie: Can I ask you a question? You reported then on the trip for Business Week, as I recall.

Montgomery: Yes.

Currie: The trip was paid for by the government of Mexico?

Montgomery: It was paid for by the government plus a few of the industries represented there.

Currie: This is a question I've asked you before, but do you feel that because they were paying for the trip that that biased your reporting?

Montgomery: No, I never thought about it, because the trip was a joyous occasion in which there was no effort to point it to one paper or another. No, I don't believe that. No.

Currie: You've done so many things, I hate to leave them out, but I think one thing you particularly wanted to mention was in 1958 you were chosen as the U.S. representative to a group of press women visiting NATO from various NATO countries. Is that correct?

Montgomery: Yes. One woman was chosen from each NATO country to attend a four-day briefing at NATO headquarters in Paris, and it was the first time they'd ever had a women's conference. So it was something of an event. Well, the State Department named me to go, and it was a memorable occasion. We came away with a better knowledge of NATO's purpose and objectives. We also were able to get acquainted with outstanding women from NATO countries.