Margherita Arlina Hamm
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Margherita Arlina Hamm (1867-1907) was among the earliest American female journalists, and perhaps the first one to cover a war from the front lines. She was also a prolific author of popular books, especially relating to travel and famous people. Hamm was both an active suffragette, and a supporter and defender of American overseas imperialism/colonialism at the time of the Spanish-American War, which she covered.
Born in Bangor, Maine, Hamm made her career in New York City. In 1893 she was traveling in Korea when the Sino-Japanese War broke out, and used the opportunity to establish herself as a foreign correspondent for New York newspapers. She also began writing articles for popular magazines, eventually becoming editor of the Women's Dept. of Peterson's Magazine. Hamm was also active in the National American Woman Suffrage Association, and was sufficiently well-known by 1895 that an article of that year in the Boston Daily Globe entitled "If Women were Members of Congress" included her as a potential candidate, along with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton
On the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in 1898, Hamm became Chairman of the Women's Congress of Patriotism and Independence in New York, a pro-war group, and soon followed the troops to Puerto Rico, sending back despatches from the front lines. She spent the next few years writing books and articles about the war and its aftermath, most from a patriotic perspective. Titles included Manila and the Philippines (1898), America's New Possessions and Spheres of Influence (1899), and Dewey the Defender: A Life Sketch of America's Great Admiral. She even composed a hymn to George Dewey. Hamm produced one relatively progressive book, Ghetto Silhouettes (1902) with David Warfield, but her favorite subject, following the war-related books, was the American and New York elite. Titles in this series included Builders of the Republic (1902), Eminent Actors in their Homes (1902), and Famous Families of New York (1902).
Hamm died young, at the age of 40.
[edit] References
Wayne Reilly "What's A Woman to Do?", Bangor Daily News, Mar. 1, 2008
Newark (Ohio) Daily Advertiser, Nov. 24, 1895
"If Women Were Members of Congress", Boston Daily Globe, Nov. 10, 1895, p. 20
"The Big Fair for Cuba", New York Times, May 18, 1898
See also her own correspondence in, for example:
New York Daily Mail, Jan. 25, 1896
Washington Post, Oct. 30, 1898; Dept. 11, 1989; Oct. 15, 1899
Los Angeles Times, Mar. 8, 1896
