The University of Arkansas Press is pleased to announce the forthcoming publication of Newspaperwoman of the Ozarks: The Life and Times of Lucile Morris Upton by Susan Croce Kelly.
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.
Susan Croce Kelly is a journalist and 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. “Until very recent times,” wrote Susan Young in the Arkansas Historical Quarterly, “serious studies of Ozark history and culture have been few and far between. Most of us have been content to let travel writers and folklorists portray the region as a place where life was simpler, the landscape remained unspoiled, and time stood still. While some of that description was true, much of it was not. Now, finally, we can drink from a deep, clear, wellspring of Ozark reality instead of the snake oil that produced bucolic visions of the good old days. To force the scales from our nostalgic eyes, the University of Arkansas Press has launched its Ozarks Studies series to publish new scholarship about the old Ozarks. Brooks Blevins, Noel Boyd Professor of Ozarks Studies at Missouri State University, serves as the series editor, guaranteeing the works included will examine the region with objectivity and clarity.”