Newspaperwoman of the Ozarks cover image

Newspaperwoman of the Ozarks: The Life and Times of Lucile Morris Upton by Susan Croce Kelly is now available!

Lucile Morris Upton landed her first newspaper job out West in the early 1920s, then returned home to spend half a century reporting on the Ozarks world she knew best. Having come of age just as women gained the right to vote, she took advantage of opportunities that presented themselves in a changing world. During her years as a journalist, Upton rubbed shoulders with presidents, flew with aviation pioneer Wiley Post, covered the worst single killing of US police officers in the twentieth century, wrote an acclaimed book on the vigilante group known as the Bald Knobbers, charted the growth of tourism in the Ozarks, and spearheaded a movement to preserve iconic sites of regional history. Following retirement from her newspaper job, she put her experience to good use as a member of the Springfield City Council and community activist.

Told largely through Upton’s own words, this insightful biography captures the excitement of being on the front lines of newsgathering in the days when the whole world depended on newspapers to find out what was happening.

“Lucile Morris Upton’s work to document and preserve the Ozarks—through advocacy, books, and newspapering—far outlives her time on Earth. Yet behind these efforts is her own story: one of diligence, of adventure found in everyday moments, and of her role in the women’s movement before it carried that title. Newspaperwoman of the Ozarks artfully shares that story.”
—Kaitlyn McConnell

Susan Croce Kelly was a reporter at Lucile Morris Upton’s own Springfield News-Leader. She is the author of Route 66: The Highway and Its People and the managing editor of OzarksWatch at Missouri State University’s Ozarks Studies Institute.

Newspaperwoman of the Ozarks is part of the Ozarks Studies series, edited by Brooks Blevins. The Ozarks Studies series acknowledges the awakening of a scholarly Ozarks studies movement—one that crosses disciplinary boundaries as it approaches regional study from a variety of vantage points—and positions the University of Arkansas Press as the publisher at the forefront of the movement. As the only university press headquartered within the Ozarks region and as a press with a solid background in the publication of books on the region—Rafferty’s The Ozarks, Land and Life, Morrow’s Shepherd of the Hills Country, Harper’s White Man’s Heaven, Sizemore’s Ozark Vernacular Houses, and many more—the University of Arkansas Press is ideally suited for the first series that will level a scholarly eye on the Ozarks and Ozarkers.