A new biography brings to life a 20th century icon, Elsie Robinson, the pioneering female journalist from Benicia who became one of William Randolph Heart’s ‘most-read’ writers af…
OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA – AUGUST 20: Youngsters in fancy dress performed in a show given by the Oakland Tribune’s Aunt Elsie Club at the American Theater in Oakland on August 20, 1921. They are from left to right, front row: Betty Jane Tepple, Dudley Manlove, Bob Phieffer, Bernice De Pasquale. Second row: Gladys Silva, Dorothy Burke, Adele Leahey, Mildred Mitzman. Third row: Carol Hammerton, Alberta Blair, Bernice Claire Jahnigen, Evelyn Cavanaugh, Josephie De Pasquale.
Cover of ‘Listen, World!’ the biography of pioneering columnist, author and cartoonist Elsie Robinson More than anything, Robinson challenged her era’s views on women. Decades before Betty Friedan and other second-wave feminists explored the drudgeries of domestic life and wrote frankly about sexuality, Robinson described her sexual curiosity as a teen girl – once peering into a shack along Benicia’s wharf to see a prostitute servicing a client.
What Gilbert and Bay Area writer Scheeres discovered as they teamed up on the project was the story of a woman who seized on the promise of the California dream. Robinson’s parents were settlers, and her independent spirit was nurtured by the bohemian, frontier-town culture of Benicia and a working class family who valued education, including for their daughters.
Robinson and George were accompanied to the West by Robert Wallace, a darkly handsome writer and former mental patient, for whom she illustrated some children’s books. They likely were lovers, according to Scheeres and Gilbert, although Robinson never copped to it, probably because she feared losing her son if her husband proved adultery.
“I had my first newspaper job!” she proclaimed. “I would not have to go on the streets. And my boy and I could eat!”
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