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Barbara "Bobbi" McCallum (July 21, 1943 – June 3, 1969) was an American journalist.
Early life
editMcCallum was born Barbara McCallum on July 21, 1943, in Hartford, Connecticut. Her parents were Dorothy Vaile McCallum and James McCallum. Her father was a captain in the United States Navy and the family often moved, with McCallum attending schools in Illinois, Rhode Island, South Carolina and California. She graduated from George Mason High School in Falls Church, Virginia, in 1962. She turned down acceptances from Northwestern and Stanford to attend Cornell University, where she studied English. While at the university, she worked on the student newspaper, The Cornell Daily Sun, and the alumni magazine. She graduated with honors in 1965 and a plan to become a journalist.[1]
Career
editThe summer after her graduation, she worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (P-I), writing for their women's pages.[2] She stayed at the newspaper until her death, as a women's page journalist and fashion writer.[3] It was a time when women's pages were undergoing change, moving away from their historic coverage of fashion and homemaking to include stories about issues such as abortion and the women's rights movement. At the P-I, this was spearheaded by McCallum's editor, Sally Raleigh, and fellow reporter Susan Paynter. McCallum specialized in writing profiles of both local and public figures, as she took a real interest in those she interviewed. She wrote features on the musician Faron Young, the antropologist George Quimbly, the nun Mary Vincent and [...].[2]
McCallum often covered fashion, including a 1968 profile of Florence Balut, an expert on fur clothing, which acknowledged the ethical debates around the practice.[4] She learned from Raleigh how to cover the topic and wrote about the opening of local boutiques, including Elizabeth Arden's Red Door Salon, and fashion shows, such as a 1968 show by British fashion designer Mary Quant.[5] She reported on the fashion trends of the time, including belts, hats and the color gray.[6] She also wrote articles on arts and culture, including a profile on choreographer Deborah Hay, an article about the Seattle Art Museum putting on an exhibit covering Japanese art, and A Contemporary Theatre creating a children's improv program.[4]
Many of McCallum's articles covered topics that were not frequently discussed at the time. In 1966, she wrote a series of articles about infertility, covering the current medical treatments available and the emotional consequences of being infertile. She also wrote a series on adoption, including articles on the decisions to adopt or to give a child up for adoption and the nuances of mixed-race adoption and fostering a child with disabilities.[7]
On May 19, 1968,
Death and legacy
edit
References
edit- ^ Voss 2010, p. 9.
- ^ a b Voss 2010, pp. 9–10.
- ^ Voss 2021, p. 152.
- ^ a b Voss 2010, p. 10.
- ^ Voss 2010, p. 11.
- ^ Voss 2021, p. 96.
- ^ Voss 2010, pp. 11–12.
- ^ "The Short but Promising Career of Seattle Post-Intelligencer Reporter Bobbi McCallum" (PDF). Columbia.
- ^ Chapman, Bruce. "The P-I: Saying goodbye to a liberal voice | Crosscut". crosscut.com. Retrieved 2023-08-12.
- ^ "Obituary for Barbara McCallum". Fort Lauderdale News. 1969-06-04. p. 49. Retrieved 2023-08-12.
- ^ "It Was in the P-I". Seattle Weekly. 2006-10-09. Retrieved 2023-09-02.
- ^ "Obituary for Mc CALLUM BOBBI". Kitsap Sun. 1969-06-04. p. 21. Retrieved 2023-09-03.
- ^ "Article clipped from Spokane Chronicle". Spokane Chronicle. 1968-12-26. p. 6. Retrieved 2023-09-03.
- ^ "Article clipped from The Olympian". The Olympian. 1969-06-04. p. 6. Retrieved 2023-09-03.
Sources
edit- Voss, Kimberly Wilmot (2018). Re-Evaluating Women's Page Journalism in the Post-World War II Era: Celebrating Soft News. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-3-319-96214-6.
- Voss, Kimberly Wilmot (2021). Newspaper Fashion Editors in the 1950s and 60s: Women Writers of the Runway. Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-73624-8. ISBN 978-3-030-73624-8. S2CID 243702388.