Winifred Bonfils
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Winifred Black Sweet Bonfils (b.1863- d. May, 1936.)
Reporter, fifty year prolific columnist for William Randolph Hearst's news syndicate writing as Winifred Black, and for the San Francisco Examiner as Annie Laurie. Famous as pre-eminent "sob-sister", a label given female reporters who wrote human interest stories. Her first husband was Orlow Black. Her second Publisher Charles Bonfils.
Born in Wisconsin, Bonfils was the daughter of Civil War General Benjamin Sweet. After writing to the Chicago Tribune, she was hired for a short time then in 1890 she found work the San Francisco Examiner.
She is famous for staging a fainting on the street to test emergency services in San Francisco which were found wanting, resulting in a major scandal and institution of ambulance service. In 1900, she dressed as a boy and was the first reporter on the line at the Galveston Flood. She delivered an exclusive and Hearst sent relief supplies by train.
She wrote a biography of Phoebe Apperson Hearst.
The name "Annie Laurie"was a tribute to her contemporay "Nellie Bly." Her funeral was nearly a state event in San Francisco.
[edit] Quotes
"a woman has a distinct advantage over a man in reporting if she has sense. . . . Men always are good to women."
On the label, sob-sister, "Most of them are sap sisters."
"I'd rather smell the printer's ink and hear the presses go around than go to any grand opera in the world."
"I like newspapers and newspaper people and newspaper standards, and I like newspaper news too, and I'm just foolish enough to say so. . . . I'm proud of being, in a very humble way, a member of the good old newspaper gang—the kindest-hearted, quickest-witted, clearest-eyed, most courageous assemblage of people I have ever had the honor and the good fortune to know. . . ."
