Anne Royall

Because the hubby is watching Fox News' coverage of the DNC this morning, I was thinking about presidents. It occurred to me to think of the age differences at election of Reagan & Clinton. So I looked them up on the Internet. While doing so, I was sucked into (as congenital academics are prone to being) trivia on Presidents of the U.S. One fact on a page of trivia caught my eye:

John Quincy Adams customarily took a nude early morning swim in the Potomac River. Anne Royall, the first U.S. professional journalist, knew of his 5 a.m. swims. After being refused interviews with the president time after time, she went to the river, gathered his clothes and sat on them until she had her interview. Before this, no female had interviewed a president.

Look at that!  Can you imagine?  I mean, Adams could have avoided her by breaking the rules of etiquette and "female sensibilities" by just getting out of the water.  But she won because she used the rules for herself instead of against her.  Anne Royall sounded like an interesting woman, who I'd never heard about before.  So I looked her up.

She was called "an uncommon scold."  People apparently were not fond of her because she went after politicians, fraud, government corruption.  She was opposed to slavery, but disliked the zealotry of abolitionists.  She was opposed to liquor, but against the way temperance advocates went about it.  So even in her causes, she pissed people off.  What a woman to admire!  I took one Journalism class in college, but I never heard of her.  The first woman reporter I ever heard of was Ida B. Wells (who is pretty impressive too).  I wonder, are there any of ya'll out there who are Journalists who took a class where you heard of Anne Royall?  This is a woman that I think people ought to know about. 

(Insert random weird connection here) I mean, folks criticize reporters like Bill O'Reilly for being a jerk and just seem to passionately hate him-- but there's a long history of people not liking reporters who just speak their minds and don't take any flak.  (I have to say, I'm not a big fan of O'Reilly, but I'm glad folks like him are out there to bring through a certain perspective). 

Anyway.  I can't help it but be a bit of a teacher sometimes.  So here ya go.  Your history lesson of the day.