Summer Series 2022: Jean Gaddy Wilson (NWMC, Part 1)

Season Description

Established in 1987 and celebrating its 35th anniversary in 2022, the National Women and Media Collection (NWMC) documents the roles women have played in media fields, as employees and leaders as well as subjects of news coverage, how those roles have altered over time, and how attitudes of and towards women have changed. NWMC includes records of women’s organizations and professional and personal papers of women journalists, editors, book authors, newspaper and magazine publishers, media company CEOs, journalism and mass communication educators, press secretaries, and public relations personnel, as well as radio, television, and film producers and personalities.

To celebrate this important anniversary, and coincide with the opening of the exhibition In Their Own Words: Celebrating the National Women and Media Collection, Our Missouri has dedicated Summer Series 2022 to the women featured within the collection and exhibit, as well as the journalists, scholars, archivists, and librarians who have pioneered and preserved its materials.

Summer Series 2022

Episode Description

This episode features excerpts from an oral history with Jean Gaddy Wilson recorded in 2022 for the National Women and Media Collection. Wilson discusses her career in media, her involvement in the Journalism and Women Symposium (JAWS), and her role in the establishment of the National Women and Media Collection (NWMC).

Episode & Banner Image: Donna Allen, Marjorie Paxson, Jean Gaddy Wilson, and Nancy Lankford, date unknown [Marjorie B. Paxson Papers (C4078), SHSMO]

About the Guest

Jean Gaddy Wilson

Jean Gaddy Wilson is a professional consultant who has spoken on five continents and who spent fourteen years as a Professor of Journalism at the University of Missouri. She is a co-author, along with Brian S. Brooks and James L. Pinson, of the journalism textbook Working With Words: A Handbook for Media Writers and Editors. She is the founder of New Directions for News, an innovation think tank, at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, and her work led to the founding of the Journalism and Women Symposium (JAWS) and the International Women’s Media Foundation. She co-founded the National Women and Media Collection (NWMC) with Gannett publisher Marj Paxson and the Western Historical Manuscript Collection (now affiliated with the State Historical Society of Missouri).