Eleanor Medill Patterson
Eleanor Josephine Medill "Cissy" Patterson (November 7, 1884 - July 24, 1948) was an American journalist and newspaper editor, publisher, and owner. Patterson was one of the first women to head a major daily newspaper, the Washington Times-Herald, in Washington, D.C..
Life
Elinor Josephine Medill Patterson was born in Chicago, Illinois to Robert and Nellie (Medill) Patterson. She changed the spelling of her first name to "Eleanor" as an adult, but her childhood name "Cissy" stuck with her from the moment her brother declared it. Biographers believe that Patterson's admiration for Eleanor Roosevelt could have been a motivation to change the spelling of her first name. Her grandfather, Joseph Medill, was Mayor of Chicago and owned the Chicago Tribune, which later passed into the hands of her first cousin Colonel Robert R. McCormick, Joseph Medill's grandson. Her older brother, Joseph Medill Patterson, was the founder of the New York Daily News.
Patterson was educated at Miss Porter's School in Farmington, Connecticut. When her uncle, Robert S. McCormick, was named ambassador to Austria-Hungary, she accompanied him and his wife, Cissy's maternal aunt Kate, to Vienna. There she met Count Josef Gizycki and fell in love with him, a romance that continued upon her return to America, where she lived in Washington, D.C..
In Washington, Patterson was a leading light in society, where the press labeled her, Alice Roosevelt (daughter of Theodore), and Marguerite Cassini (daughter of the Russian ambassador) the "Three Graces." Count Gizycki came to America and married Patterson in Washington on April 14, 1904, despite the objections of her family. On September 3, 1905 Cissy gave birth to their daughter, Leonora Felicia. Cissy and Leonora went with the Count to his home, a huge feudal manor in Russia. Cissy attempted to leave after enduring marital strife, but the Count aggressively tried to prevent her departure. She fled with their child, hiding her in a house near London, but the Count pursued her and kidnapped the little Countess, hiding her in an Austrian convent while demanding a million dollars in ransom. Cissy filed for divorce, which took thirteen years to obtain, and in which William Howard Taft and Czar Nicholas II were personally involved: The Czar ordered the Count to return the child to her mother.
Patterson feuded with her daughter, who publicly "divorced" her in 1945, and with her former son-in-law, Drew Pearson. Alienated from her family and friends, she turned to alcohol and secluded herself at her home, Dower House, near Marlboro, Maryland. Patterson died alone at 64 from the cumulative effects of alcoholism.
Work
After her experience abroad, she moved to Lake Forest, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, but she returned to Washington in 1913. In 1920, her brother Joseph finally succumbed to his sister's entreaties and allowed her to write for his New York Daily News, founded the previous year. She also worked for William Randolph Hearst. She published two novels, romans a clef, Glass Houses (1926) and Fall Flight (1928), part of her feud with former friend Alice Roosevelt Longworth. The friendship with Alice Longworth ended when at a dinner party hosted by the Longworths, Patterson was caught sleeping with Mrs. Longworth's husband. During the party, Mrs. Longworth caught Eleanor and Nicholas on the floor of a bathroom in the home, with the light on and the door unlocked. Alice then retaliated by having a lasting affair with Senator William Edgar Borah, which at its height, produced a child Paulina Longworth. Patterson also had an affair with Borah, but Alice won out reportely because Patterson frequently gloated about their experiences unlike Alice.
Patterson tried to buy the Washington Herald and the Washington Times, then separate papers, from Hearst, who hated to sell anything, even when he needed the money. Although he had never made money from his Washington papers, he refused. However, at the urging of his editor Arthur Brisbane, Hearst agreed to make Patterson editor of the Herald. She began work on August 1, 1930. Patterson was a hands-on editor who insisted on the best of everything—writing, layout, typographic, graphics, comics, everything. She encouraged society reporting and the women's page and hired many women as reporters. In 1936, she was invited to join the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Patterson made her paper popular with all strata of Washington society and doubled its circulation.
In 1937, Hearst's finances had gotten worse and he agreed to lease the Herald and the Times to Patterson with an option to buy. Eugene Meyer, the man who had outbid Hearst and Patterson for The Washington Post in 1933, tried to buy the Herald out from under Patterson, but failed. Instead, she bought both papers from Hearst on January 28, 1939, and merged them as the Times-Herald.
Along with her brother at the New York Daily News and her cousin at the Chicago Tribune, Patterson was an ardent isolationist and opponent of the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1942, after the Battle of Midway, the Times-Herald ran a Tribune story that revealed American intelligence was reading the Japanese naval code. Roosevelt, furious, had the Tribune and the Times-Herald indicted for espionage but backed down because of the publicity, charges he was persecuting his enemies, and the likelihood of an acquittal (since the Navy's own censors had twice cleared the story before it was published). During World War II, she and her brother were accused by their enemies of being Nazi sympathizers. Representative Elmer Holland of Pennsylvania on the floor of the United States House of Representatives said Cissy and Joseph Patterson "would welcome the victory of Hitler."
Legacy
Upon her death, Patterson left the paper to seven of her editors who sold the paper to her cousin Colonel McCormick within a year of her death. McCormick held onto the paper for five years, and although for several years he seemed close to returning it to profitability, it eventually proved to be too much of a financial drain. After quietly sounding out several other publishers, McCormick opted to sell the paper to the rival Post, which promptly closed it.
As Countess Gyzicki, Patterson was a frequent visitor to Jackson Hole, Wyoming in the 1920s where Donald Hough records an unexpected aspect of her personality: the ability to speak effectively to horses in language worthy of a native cowboy.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Healy, Paul F. Cissy: The Biography of Eleanor M. "Cissy" Patterson. 1966.
- Martin, Ralph G. Cissy. New York City: Simon and Schuster, 1979.
- Young, Robert Clark. "The Richest Girl in the World" (excerpt). The Southern Humanities Review Spring 2005 Auburn University Southern Humanities Council
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