Hettie Fithian Cattell, life and career
This page is devoted to what I can find about the life and career of Hettie Fithian Cattell (1887-1976). It is in two parts —
profiles and mentions
family (parents, etc)
Provisional (and rough, full-of-holes etc) timeline —
| 1887 | birth, Fargo, North Dakota |
| 1907 | East Denver High School (co-deliverer of “class prophecy” at commencement. *) |
| 1908-11 | Denver (Colorado) Post |
| 1911 | Hotel reporter, Pasadena (many luxury hotels there, in those years); lived in home of mother of aviator Arch Hoxsey (1884-1910 *) |
| 1911 | honorable mention for poster design, for use in advertising the coming Tournament of Roses pageant (Los Angeles Times, October 5, 1911 *) Arch Hoxsey would have participated in the Tournament parade (of January 1, 1911), but perished the day before; “an aeroplane float... draped in black and with a vacant seat” honored him * |
| 1911-12 | Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram |
| 1913 | The Rocky Mountain News : reporter, special writer; book, music and drama critic |
| 1913-14 | Managing Director of The Index, an Evanston, Illinois paper staffed entirely by women |
| 1916-18? | reporter for the Chicago Tribune |
| 1916 | marriage to Gilman M. Parker (1890-1935); divorce ca 1925-26 |
| 1917 | birth of daughter Nancy Cattell Parker (1917-95) |
| 1918 | “engaged in publicity work for the Red Cross in Chicago” |
| 1924-1927-(60?) | reporter and features, the New York Daily Mirror |
| 1925 | “For the Love of Pete” (a play, published) |
| 1926 | WRNY radio feature “Whose Birthday Today?” — discusses the mystic astrological and numerological meaning of the day |
| 1927 | The New York American : psychoanalytical feature called “Your Dreams” |
| 1927 | “a long philosophic poem called the ‘Psychiad’;” working on ‘frivolous fiction’ ...tentatively named ‘Drolleries of Love’.” |
| 1928-29 | the New York Panorama : three-part profile of Fanny Brice |
| 1976 | death |
The preceding page — 2573a — is devoted to a directory (and transcriptions of some) of her writings.
black bar ╹ at left margin returns page to top.
- A. C. Haeselbarth profiles Hetty Cattell in his series “American Women of the Press” —
The woman who would succeed must like writing, bristle with ideas, uphold a literary standard and have dogged determination, declares Miss Hetty Cattell, of the Rocky Mountain News
The Editor and Publisher : (November 29, 1913) : 460 : linkAnother of these asfaltics pages is devoted to those profiled writers and editors : 2568
- “Miss Hetty Cattell to Manage Newspaper Edited by Women
Special writer of news chosen to direct Evanston publication; Every department will be run by fair sex”
Miss Hetty Cattell, special writer of The News staff, has been chosen managing; editor of The Index, an Evanston, Ill., paper, to be managed and written entirely by women. She leaves to assume her new duties next week.
The Index has been purchased by John C. Shaffer, owner of The News and The Times. Even the office “boy” and sporting editor will be of the gentle sex.
“Despite the fact that the entire personnel of the staff will be feminine, the paper will be far from being hysterical,” said Miss Cattell last night. “We will steer clear of any drastic advocation of women’s rights.
“However, we will be champions without being Quixotic about it. We will print the news and the news will be bright, snappy, clean and up-to-date. While we will, in our editorial columns, foster great women’s movements, we will also give such news of men that would be of interest to women.
Will Be Real Newspaper.
“It will be a newspaper in every sense of the word. T will employ only ambitious and competent women on the staff. They will have to attain a good batting average and maintain it. The Index is a weekly. It is my ambition to make it a daily paper.
“I know that women can produce a paper. I shall endeavor to make a newspaper fit to be in the homes of educated people who enjoy news printed in a true but decent manner. We will not be militant. T want to print features that women like, but I also want a paper which will appeal to men as well as women.”
The city editor and other members of The Index staff will be selected later and all of them, including copy readers will be women. Miss Cattell will be one of the first women to manage a paper produced by women writers.
She is a Denver girl, a graduate of the East Denver High school and received her newspaper training here. She is considered one of the brightest newspaper writers in the West.
For the past seven months Miss Cattell has been book reviewer and special writer on The News. She has also served on papers in California and Texas.
Known as Fearless Critic.
As a dramatic critic in this city, she has enjoyed the friendship of theatrical managers and actors, her criticisms having been without exception fearless and just both to the public and the profession.
Miss Cattell is very modest about predicting her success, but admits that she thinks there can be no failure of the woman’s paper as she feels that the people want a paper such as she intends to make of The Index.
“Newspaper men and women of the West always make good,” says Miss Cattell, "partly because they are ambitious and enthusiastic and partly because they have a novel and incisive way of looking at life. And above all, Western newspaper people are not afraid to tackle any kind of a proposition that has a good motive back of it.”The Rocky Mountain News 54:353 (December 19, 1913) : 1
via Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection : link
- “Woman Editor Quits; She Says ‘Never Again’
Miss Hetty Cattell Leaves North Shore Review to the mercy of men, so there!”
Chicago Examiner (7 June 1914) : Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections : linkMiss Hetty Cattell, erstwhile managing editor of the “only newspaper in the world edited exclusively by women,” the North Shore Review, in Evanston, has quit, or rather has been “honorably discharged.”
She could not be boss in her little shop, so after locking the forms and getting out yesterday’s weekly, she served her connection with the Review.
The subscribers little realize the strain under which that last edition was sent to press. One day Mrs. Lillian M. Johnson was “fired.” The next day she was reinstated and Miss Cattell “fired,” two of the other reporters “walking out” with the managing editor. Then the next day they were all back working together again as harmoniously as might the Cubs and the Giants.
Now Miss Cattell has quit “completely,” Miss Lillian Green, who came from Denver at the instance of Miss Cattell to be city editor, is without a position, and Miss Estelle Franz, a reporter, taking to heart the troubles of her managing editor, has “walked out.”
Late yesterday Miss Franz, however, reconsidered and is back again on her job of trailing along for twenty miles on the North Shore in search of news. She is back though “only for the time being.”
When Miss Cattell was working on the Denver News with Miss Green, she promised the lat[t]er a job when she became managing editor of the North Shore Review. The opportunity only came last week to make a place for Miss Green.
Miss Cattell discharged Mrs. Johnson, but Mrs. Johnson refused to be “fired.” Instead she went to the owner of the paper, who reinstated her. Then Miss Cattell took a trip to Chicago to see the owner of the paper.
“If I’m going to run your paper for you, I’m going to run it the way I please,” the managing editor told the owner. “If I can’t hire and fire as I please, I quit.”
Mrs. Johnson remained, and Miss Cattell quit. The owner persuaded the managing editor, though, to return until the weekly was sent to press. She did and Mrs. Johnson was “fired” again and in the meantime Miss Green arrived from Denver. But again, after an interview with the owner of the paper, Miss Cattell quit. Mrs. Johnson is now managing editor, and Miss Cattell is looking for another job.
“I’ve quit forever and ever,” Miss Cattell said. - “Hetty Cattell Becomes Bride of Chicago Writer”
Miss Hetty Cattell, former member of The Rocky Mountain News reportorial staff, and widely known in Denver, was married in Chicago Friday to Gilman M. Parker.
The Chicago Tribune announces the wedding as follows:
“Cupid started two Tribune reporters on their biggest assignment yesterday. While somewhat agitated, they both were determined on a scoop.
“The story has been brewing in the local room of the Tribune for several months, and began when Gilman M. Parker and Miss Hetty Cattell worked on an assignment together. Yesterday the story ‘broke’ at the home of the Rev. William Chalmers Covert of 4108 Grand boulevard, where the two appeared with a marriage license.
“If either of them were writing this story it would be noted that the Rev. Henry Martyn Paynter. Parker’s grandfather, and the Rev. William Cattell, a great uncle of the bride, were in the same class and were close friends at Princeton.
“However, this point was not discovered until after the wedding.”The Rocky Mountain News 57:136 (May 15, 1916) : 1
via Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection : link—
Presumably William Cassady Cattell (1827-98)
wikipedia : link
- “Mrs. Hester Cattell Parker, formerly with the Chicago Tribune, is now engaged in publicity work for the Red Cross in Chicago. Her husband, Gilman Parker, is in charge of the publicity of the Great Lakes naval training station.”
The Fourth Estate (August 10, 1918) : 19 : link
- “Changes in Staff of Station Paper Are Made
Chief G. M. Parker, Veteran Editor, Released from Duty in Navy.
World tour on 50 cts.”
By George E. Richmond.Gilman Moncure Parker, A. B.
No, it doesn’t mean Bachelor of Arts — It means able bodied seaman, and the holder of this honorable rate in the British merchant marine walked out of Camp Barry yesterday.
He’s better known to Great Lakes as Chief Yeoman Parker, acting publicity officer, and as such, “father” of the Great Lakes Bulletin. This humble sheet "first saw the light of day more than a year ago, under the guiding hand of this well known, popular and gifted Chicago newspaper man, and the steady hand of the same Gilman Moncure Parker has been at its helm since. To him the larger portion of credit for its considerable success is due.
But about that “A. B.” that’s quite a story, and is one of the high lights upon a career which reads like a tale of fiction, but which also casts light upon the facile pen wielded by Chief Yeoman Parker.
“Gil,” as his Chicago newspaper associates and Bulletin conferees aft'ec-v tionately clubbed him, away back in 1911 developed the wanderlust that so frequently manifests itself in the newspaper profession. With three other Chicago newspaper men, “Gil” started out on a trip around the world, taking a pledge not to write home for money. “Gil” at this time was but a raw youth of 20, and so the first step on the adventurous tour of the globe, in crossing the Atlantic in the capacity of chambermaid to some 400 cows (none of which were ladies, he says) wasn’t half so bad as it sounds. But at that “Gil” decided that he wasn’t cut out as a stockman, but nevertheless couldn’t get away from the pasture-queens, for his next job found him working in a market in good old London town, toting beef about for some proletariat, bay-windowed butcher. Brussels saw this adventurous youth for a time, as did Paris, where he acted, he says, as a two-legged delivery horse. Preparing, perhaps, for his future life in the U. S. Navy, “Gil” heaved coal in Gibraltar for some three months.
Wins His “A. B.”
Footing it a large part of the way, young Parker saw most of Europe, and finally landed in Port Said, Egypt, and it was there that he shipped on a British vessel as an “able bodied seaman.” The destination of the craft was Manila, which satisfied “Gil” perfectly, as he was keeping on his globe-circling schedule. He and his three frisky companions constituted the only white members of the crew, the rest being Malays, and as such they were quartered in the fourth officer’s cabin (there being no fourth officer). Any little proficiency which “Gil” may claim in the line of cussing may be attributed to this voyage, for no one could fail to acquire a profane fluency under the tutelage of the first mate, who could cuss for ten minutes straight without repeating once.
In Manila “Gil” became a school teacher, soon being advanced to supervisor of a number of schools. Finally, however, the good old U. S. A. seemed silently a-beckoning and “Gil,” funds not being plentiful, stowed away on an army transport and when, a few weeks later he once more bestrode State street, in good old “Chi,” he had completed his circle of the globe. The journey required two years. “Gil” says he had something like 50 cents in his pocket when he left and 49 cents when he got back, but the journey left him rich in experience.
Naturally, being a newspaper man, “Gil” did considerable newspaper work on this world trip, which may be briefly touched upon. In London he wrote special features for the London Daily Mail. In Manila he was editor of the weekly edition of the Manila Times and covered the chief government bureaus for the daily edition of this newspaper.
In Again — Out Again.
When Uncle Sam and Mexico got into that little border brawl, “Gil” just naturally had to get into it, and so he become a trooper in the First Illinois Cavalry. On the border he was the founder and editor of the “First Illinois Cavalryman,” the dean of newspapers published by United States enlisted men in the field, which was soon followed by a host of similar publications.
Mr. Parker is one of the best known newspaper men in Chicago. His experience includes one year with the Chicago Inter-Ocean as a reporter, five years with the Chicago Tribune as reporter, labor editor and manager of the news bureau, and two years with the Chicago Record-Herald as reporter and labor editor.
When Uncle Sam got into the great world war and Great Lakes began to grow almost overnight from a little Naval village to a mammoth cantonment, Captain William A. Moffett, then Commandant, foresaw the need of a Station publication. So it was that “Gil” answered the summons of his friend, Lieutenant (j. g.) Sumner N. Blossom (then an ensign), supervisory publicity officer, a Chicago newspaper man. To “Gil” was left the huge job of preparing for the birth of the Bulletin, and he it was who sent it a-flying down the ways on its first cruise — a cruise which it continued valiantly throughout the war and bids fair to continue so long as Great Lakes is upon the map. “Gil” called about him a goodly crew of competent newspaper men and it was his boast that his little “sheet” had as capable a staff as any metropolitan daily might boast of.
Comes of Illustrious Family.
There is a deal of satisfaction in developing an institution like the Great Lakes Bulletin, in nurturing it to a full growth and in knowing that it has contributed in large measure to creating the spirit of Great Lakes, and in sustaining the morale of the United States Navy, all for “the good of the ship.” From the selection of the type to the balancing of the “heads,” the Bulletin is the product of Chief Yeoman Gilman M. Parker, and for his work he deserves no little credit.
Chief Yeoman Parker is a descendant of an illustrious family, which has been in every war of the United States from the Revolution down. He is a member of a Virginia family over 200 years old, being a descendant of Mary Butler Washington, niece of the illustrious George, father of our country. His great-grandfather was Judge R. C. L. Moncure, for many years presiding judge of the Supreme Court of Virginia. A relative of Chief Yeoman Parker is General Peyton Conway March, chief staff of the United States Army.
Chief Yeoman Parker’s father is William R. Parker, clerk of the criminal court in Chicago, and his mother, Mrs. Mary Moncure Parker, is well known as the author of numerous plays and novels, “Gil’s” wife, before marriage Miss Hetty Cattell, was well known as a newspaper woman. In Denver, her home, she was dramatic critic and literary editor of the Rocky Mountain News.Great Lakes Bulletin (April 11, 1919) : via Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections : link
- “Mrs. Hetty Cattell Parker is again on the staff of the Chicago Tribune. She is now doing some of the book reviews.”
The Fourth Estate (May 31, 1919) : 19 : link
- “New Honors Are Accorded Former News Writer”
The Rocky Mountain News, 66:287 (October 14, 1925) : linkNew honors were accorded Hettie Cattell Parker, better known in Denver as Hettie Cattell, former special writer and dramatic critic for The Rocky Mountain News, yesterday afternoon when the Book Reviewers’ club met at the College of Speech Arts and discussed one of her latest one-act plays, “For the Love of Pete.”
Mrs. Parker was educated at the Denver public schools and took special training at the College of Speech Arts. After spending a year here as special writer, she was called to Evanston, Ill., where she became managing editor of The Index, the only newspaper entirely edited and printed by women. Since then she has contributed verse, short stories and special features for numerous magazines and metropolitan newspapers. Her husband, Gilman Parker, also is an author.
In “For the Love of Pete,” Mrs. Parker depicts the modern flapper’s viewpoint of marriage as contrasted with the same girl’s inherent emotions when pressed by the realities of life.
The play was read by Josephine Nichols Norris, president of the school.
Hetty Fithian Cattell: You know her as “The Birthday Lady.” Every night she appears at WRNY in the feature “Whose Birthday Today?” Her talks bring out the mystic astrological and numerological meaning of the day. Has she read your name as yet?
“Artists of the Microphone; A further discussion of WRNY and its development; By Charles D. Isaacson, Program Director WRNY,” in
Radio News 7:8 (February 1926) : 1123 : link (archive.org)
- “Women in Advertising and Journalism”
Hettie Cattell Played “Beauty Doctor” for a newspaper story
Hettie Fithian Cattell, feature writer for the New York Daily Mirror, undertook the beautification of a group of women for a newspaper story a short time ago, and the experience, she believes, was her most interesting assignment. She chose several women willing to undergo the treatments and obtained an excellent story with “before and after” pictures.
“A plastic surgeon and I cut the women up, and the paper didn’t have a damage suit,” Miss Cattell said this week. “They were greatly improved in appearance, and they are all my friends to this day, very grateful for what the paper did for them.
“A newspaper contest editor on the Rocky Mountain Times in Denver once awarded me a writing prize. That made a newspaper reporter of me.
“That prize sent me from Denver to the Pacific Coast, from there to Texas, one to Chicago, and then to New York City. And according to the advice of the railroad advertising men, I ‘saw American first,’ and I might add, thoroughly. I learned about the United States, and I learned newspaper work. In fact, I am now at home everywhere in a newspaper office, except at a typesetting machine, but I suppose I shall find myself there one day.
“I was a managing editor of a weekly at one time. My society editor used to upbraid me because I occasionaly printed news which she had been saving for her column. But she was 70 years old, and had never been in a newspaper office before, and so I remained silent when she scolded me, and continued to print any news my other reporters could get, even if it interfered with the old lady’s economizing. I had a great battle with my chiefs in Chicago who would not let me put news into the paper after Thursday night though the papers went to the subscribers Saturday mornings. I resigned from this position, firmly believing that I was not meant to be a managing editor. “When in Texas I was ostracized by a few society women because I liked to ride on the front seat of the new auto police patrol. But if a woman is to be a police reporter, the police patrol is the place for her.”
Miss Cattell’s married name is Parker, and she is pictured with her 9-year-old daughter Nancy Parker — or is it Nancy Cattell? Page the Lucy Stone League!Editor & Publisher (September 25, 1926) : 63
hathitrust : link
google books : link
- “Vanderbilge”
Hettie Fithian Cattell is described as the “Mirror’s scandal-monger” in this Henry Luce hit-piece against Cornelius Vanderbilt IV (1898-1974, wikipedia), who Cattell would have known from the newspaper world, including his time at the New York Daily Mirror.
Time 9:17 (April 25, 1927) : 24 : link
- Going the rounds of publishing houses now is a long philosophic poem called the “Psychiad” by Hettie Fithian Cattell of the Daily Mirror. When Mrs. Cattell goes to her apartment nights across Brooklyn Bridge on Columbia Heights, she works on a new book which she describes as “frivolous fiction” and which she has tentatively named “Drolleries of Love.” A one-act play of hers called “For the Love of Pete” has been published. ¶ Near Mrs. Cattell’s desk on the Mirror sits Helen Hadakin, orginator of the “Dog Exchange” which this tabloid conducts...
in Philip Schuyler, “Life in New York’s Newspaper Bohemia; Great American novel and play now being produced by reporters and copyreaders — music composers, poets and collectors of Japanese prints also among those present.” in Editor & Publisher and The Fourth Estate 60:29 (December 10, 1927) : 5 : link (archive.org)
- Cattell, Hettie Fithian
B: Fargo, N D. EDU: East Side H S, 1907; Col of Speech & Arts, Denver, Colo. FEATURE WRITER, Daily Mirror, N Y C.
Formerly: With Denver (Colo) Post, 1908-11; Ft Worth (Tex) News, 1911-12; Denver (Colo) Rocky Mt News, 1912-14; Chicago Herald-Examiner; Chicago Tribune, 1916-17; mng ed, North Shore Review (Chicago Post pubn); features, N Y Amer; rpt and features, Daily Mirror, 1924-27. AUTHOR: For the Love of Pete, play, Swartout, 1925. MEM: A R C; dir, Central States Speaking Bureau, Chicago; N Y Newsp Women’s Club
Home: 83 State St, Brooklyn, N Y.ex M. N. Ask, ed., Who’s Who in Journalism (1928) : 83
U California copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link
Margaret Smith, “Hettie Cattell, Denver Girl, Is Successful Editor
Now is on staff of New York Panorama”The Rocky Mountain News 69:251, (September 7, 1928) : 8
via Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection : linkSuccess had followed Hettie Cattell!
Her latest achievement is an appojntment as the only woman member qf the Panorama, a New York illustrated news weekly, which will make its bow to the world about Sept. 15.
Hettie Cattell is a former Denver girl and still claims this city as her home, having received her education and later gained her first newspaper experience here.
Miss Cattell left Denver a few years ago to become managing editor of the North Shore Review, the only paper at that time edited exclusively by women.
She next went to the staff of the Daily Mirror, a New York tabloid, for which she has written three years.
In her varied career on the magazines and newspapers she has gained the experiences of veteran newspaper writers.
As a feature writer, Miss Cattell has attained prominence in New York.
In her position on the Panorama, she will continue short story writing and feature articles as well as offer suggestions for improvement of the adventure from a woman's point of view.
Beside her writing for newspapers, Miss Cattell has written and sold several independent articles.
One of her best known articles, which appeared in Judge a few years ago and has been re-printed since, is her “Anthology of a Boarding House.”
Miss Cattell is a sister of Mrs. Fred Hartford of Denver.
- “... When Miss Cattell moved East with her husband, Gilman Parker, a well-known newspaper man of nomadic instincts, she joined the staff of the American to do a psychoanalytical feature called ‘Your Dreams.’ Then she went over to the Mirror.”
Ishbel Ross, Ladies Of The Press (1936) : link
(archive.org, poor scan, opens to profile of Hettie F. Cattell, pp 301-302)—
Ishbel Ross (1895-1975)
wikipedia : link - “Hettie Cattell, who now rates as one of New York’s hottest ‘rewrite men’ on the Mirror”
from a passage on “distinguished newspaperwomen... who came out of the lively ferment of Denver journalism in these times,” in
Robert Perkin, The First Hundred Years : An Informal history of Denver and the Rocky Mountain News (1959): 425
borrowable at archive.org : linkCattell is also included in the acknowledgements, so she was clearly active ca 1959.
From Justin Glenn, his The Washingtons : A Family History (2015) I learn that
17857. Gilman M. Parker (born in Ill., Oct. 1890; married in Chicago, Ill. [May 12, 1916] Hetty F. Cattell [born in N.D., ca 1887]. They resided in Milton, DuPage Co., Ill., 1920, where he worked as a copyreader for a newspaper. Later divorced, he died ca. 1935).
Child:
+28191. Nancy Cattell Parker. (1917-95)
(Vol VI, Part I) : 526 : link (google books, seen 20240317)
Gilman M. Parker was the son of Mary Moncure Paynter (1862-1941), related to Washington and an author of novels (and poetry), one novel being Caleb the Irrepressable (1883), featuring a Black comic character whose speech is given in “dialect.”
(Volume V, Part I) 539 : : link (google books, seen 20240317)
—
“5121. Hester Fithian Cattell, b 1/30/1887, of whom more.”
in Donald Heys Rogers, The Cattell Family in America : The Descendants of Jonas Cattell and Mary Pearce of Burlington County, New Jersey, and Twenty-five Other Cattell Immigrations Traced in Both Male and Female Lines (Gloucester County Historical Society, 1985) : 233 : link (preview snippet)
—
Hester Fithian Cattell (1887-1976)
ex preview page, Clara Morgan Lytle Cattell family tree
ancestry.com : link
suggests her father to be William Cassidy Cattell (1856-1924), not to be confused with William Cassady Cattell (1827-1898) : wikipedia
but much confusion on this.
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