Eleanor Franklin Egan

Bertha Eleanor Pedigo was born in 1879 (some sources give 1877), the daughter of Henry Pedigo and Bina Graves Pedigo. She lived for a time at the Rose Orphan Home in Terre Haute, Indiana,[http://www.indgensoc.org/membersonly/county/vigo/rose_orphans_I_results.php Bertha E. Pedigo], Records of Rose Orphan Home, Terre Haute, Indiana State Archives. and was raised by her adoptive family in Kansas City, Missouri.David Hudson, [http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09612025.2016.1181334 "‘A woman so curiously fear-free and venturesome’: Eleanor Franklin Egan reporting the Great Russian Famine, 1922"] Women's History Review 26(2)(April 2017): 195-212.

Eleanor Pedigo Franklin moved to New York City in 1898 in search of an acting career, having done some theatre work in Kansas City. From there she became a theatre critic at Leslie's Weekly magazine, and eventually moved into political journalism. In 1903 she was sent to Japan and later Russia; she covered the Russo-Japanese War, and the Russian Revolution for Leslie's and, from 1915 to 1925, World War IEleanor Franklin Egan, [https://books.google.com/books?id=GvEAAAAAYAAJ&dq=Eleanor+Franklin+Egan&pg=PA58 "Little Orphaned Allies"] (1917), reprinted in War Readings (National Board for Historical Service, Scribner's 1918): 58-61. and its aftermath for the Saturday Evening Post.[http://www.philsp.com/homeville/fmi/d/d1509.htm#A49961 Eleanor Franklin Egan], The FictionMags Index, Chronological List.[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/8129123/eleanor_franklin_egan_returns_from/ "Braves Dangers of the War Zone"] Argus-Leader (February 28, 1916): 10. via Newspapers.com{{open access}} In 1915, she survived the deadly submarine attack on the British passenger ship Barulos.[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/8129317/eleanor_franklin_egan_survives_barulos/ "British Ship is Attacked by Submarine"] The Tennessean (November 29, 1915): 1. via Newspapers.com{{open access}} Her reporting from Armenia in 1919[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/8129184/eleanor_franklin_egan_in_armenia_1920/ "American Women Stirred by Armenian Horrors"] Brazil Daily Times (February 7, 1920): 3. via Newspapers.com{{open access}} featured eyewitness accounts of desperation:

I did not believe that there were people anywhere down on their knees eating grass. I thought it very likely that starving persons might go out and gather grasses and greens of various sorts to be prepared for food, but that men, women and children should gather like cattle in herds to graze, this I did not believe – not until I saw it.David Hudson, [https://books.google.com/books?id=_ElYvzVbxCsC&dq=Eleanor+Franklin+Egan&pg=PA390 "'Having Seen Enough': Eleanor Franklin Egan and the Journalism of Great War Displacement"] in Ingrid Sharp and Matthew Stibbe, eds., Aftermaths of War: Women's Movements and Female Activists, 1918-1923 (BRILL 2011): 390. {{ISBN|9789004191723}}

She moved to the Philippines to co-edit the Manila Times with her second husband, and served as first president of the Philippine Anti-Tuberculosis Society while she was there.United States Philippine Commission, [https://books.google.com/books?id=nzPSAAAAMAAJ&dq=Philippines+Tuberculosis+Society+Egan&pg=PA122 Report of the Philippine Commission to the Secretary of War] (1914): 122. She served on the advisory committee of the 1922 Conference on the Limitation of Armament,[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/8129255/eleanor_egan_at_disarmament_conference/ "Important Part At Arms Conference"] Wilkes-Barre Times Leader (November 10, 1921): 17. via Newspapers.com{{open access}} in Washington, D. C.[https://books.google.com/books?id=ywsyj_gy2agC&dq=Eleanor+Franklin+Egan&pg=PA32 "Women on the Advisory Committee, Conference on the Limitation of Armament, Washington D. C., 1922"] Who's Who Among the Women of California (Security Publishing Company 1922): 31-32.

Egan helped First Lady Helen Herron Taft to write her memoirs.Helen Herron Taft, [https://books.google.com/books?id=yhwFAAAAYAAJ&dq=Helen+Herron+Taft+Eleanor+Egan&pg=RA1-PR5 Recollections of Full Years] (Dodd Mead 1914): Foreword. She also published The War in the Cradle of the World (1917), about British military actions in Iraq.Eleanor Frankin Egan, [https://books.google.com/books?id=3-EMAAAAYAAJ The War in the Cradle of the World] (Harper and Brothers 1918). Her book is still studied as an early 20th-century American analysis of the region.Paul J. Rich, ed., [https://books.google.com/books?id=Ps4UycSVvvAC Iraq and Eleanor Egan's The War in the Cradle of the World] (Rowman & Littlefield 2009). {{ISBN|9780739127087}} Egan had opposed women's suffrage in print, but published an essay admitting to a change of heart soon after suffrage was won: "I feel like apologizing to the women of the combat battalions who have done all the fighting and who now bear all the scars."Eleanor Franklin Egan, "Women in Politics to the Aid of their Party" Saturday Evening Post (May 20, 1920); excerpted at Jeff Nilsson and Eleanor Franklin Egan, [http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2016/08/25/archives/reprint/self-interest-anti-suffragist-admits-mistake.html "Against Her Self-Interest: An Anti-Suffragist Admits Her Mistake"] Saturday Evening Post (August 25, 2016).

Eleanor Pedigo married twice; first, briefly, to Joel Dalbey Franklin in 1895; they divorced. Her second husband was journalist and publicist Martin Egan; they married in 1905, in Japan.[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/8128970/eleanor_egan_appointed_delegate_1921/ "Eleanor Egan Best Qualified Woman Aide"] San Bernardino County Sun (November 21, 1921): 4. via Newspapers.com{{open access}} She died in New York in 1925,[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/8128777/eleanor_egan_obituary_1925/ "Eleanor Egan, Noted Authority on Far East Matters, Dead"] Albuquerque Journal (January 19, 1925): 2. via Newspapers.com{{open access}} aged 45 years, from pneumonia secondary to giardia, a food- and water-borne parasite; among the honorary pallbearers at her funeral were Herbert Hoover, James Harbord, and Newton W. Gilbert. Other prominent attendees were Walter Lippmann, Kathleen Norris, Frank Munsey, Melville Elijah Stone, and Thomas W. Lamont.[https://www.proquest.com/docview/103602053 "Funeral of Mrs. Egan; Many Prominent Men Attend Services for War Correspondent"] New York Times (January 21, 1925): 21.

{{reflist}}

• David Hudson, [http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09612025.2016.1181334 "‘A woman so curiously fear-free and venturesome’: Eleanor Franklin Egan reporting the Great Russian Famine, 1922"] Women's History Review 26(2)(April 2017): 195–212.
• David Hudson, [https://books.google.com/books?id=_ElYvzVbxCsC&dq=Eleanor+Franklin+Egan&pg=PA375 "'Having Seen Enough': Eleanor Franklin Egan and the Journalism of Great War Displacement"] in Ingrid Sharp and Matthew Stibbe, eds., Aftermaths of War: Women's Movements and Female Activists, 1918-1923 (BRILL 2011): 375–393. {{ISBN|9789004191723}}

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Category:1870s births

Category:1925 deaths

Category:American women journalists

Category:American women in World War I

Category:20th-century American journalists