Hi everyone, our January 2022 Adult Book Club gathering is quickly approaching.

We’ll be meeting next Friday, January 14, 2022 from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. in the library’s Conference Room.

Our January Read is: Klara And The Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro (303 pages)

Our December Book Club meeting notes follow, and at the end of this email is the book club reading list for the first half of 2022.

Have a great day & I hope to see everyone next Friday!

Linda

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December 2021 SSCL Adult Book Club Meeting Notes

The Southeast Steuben County Library December 2021 Adult Book Club was held on December 10, 2021 | 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. at the library.

The December Read was: Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR by Lisa Napoli

The book club members unanimously agreed that the book was a fascinating read. 

The cliff notes overview of the book is that it focuses on four main things:

1. The lives and journalistic careers of the women mentioned in the title who all broke through glass ceilings to achieve success in their field

2. The limited options available to American women in the working world in the 1950s and 1960s, and the related struggles of women to rise above those limitations

3. In relation to point 2, how both society and the word were evolving during the time covered in the book, roughly the 1950s through the early 1990s; or as Dylan put it the fact that the times were a-changin’

4. How NPR was founded and evolved during the time covered in the book

And I’ll add a fifth item that is a notch or two below being a “main thing,” but one that I, as someone in my fifties was unware of, and which I found fascinating — and that is the launch and evolution of national radio.

The book relays the story of the Founding Mothers of NPR in the order in which they began working at NPR; and to try and keep this overview brief, which admittedly is hard for me! I’m going to simply relay brief biographical information on the Founding Mothers of the title in the chronological order that the began working at NPR:  Susan Stamberg, Linda Wertheimer, Nina Totenberg and Cokie Roberts; and recommend that if anyone reading this overview wants to know more – they should read the book – which is available for instant checkout through Hoopla.

So here is the cliff notes version of each journalist’s story:

Susan Stamberg: Susan Stamberg was born Sue Levitt, the only child of Anne and Robert Levitt. Sue grew up in New York City, just blocks from Grand Central Station.  And young girl she was captivated by the medium of radio.

Sue attended the Music and Art high school in New York City becoming the features editor of the school newspaper, The Overtone. And by the time she was a high school student Sue was aware that the life society in the fifties expected her to live, as either a wife and mother tied to hearth and home, or, as a woman working in a designated “woman’s position” as a secretary, account clerk or support staff etc., wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted to be a fully-fledged journalist and not be limited due to her gender. 

During her college years, Sue won a scholarship to Barnard College, worked as an assistant to the library archivist at Columbia University and decided to be known as Susan instead of Sue. She graduated in 1959 with degrees in English and sociology. And as the author notes, she was one of only five women in her class to graduate without being engaged.

After graduation she worked as a secretary at the newly launched 16 Magazine, briefly studied advanced English at Brandeis University in Massachusetts before deciding that wasn’t for her; landed a job as an editorial assistant, AKA a secretary; at Daedalus, a journal produced by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and became an advocate for improving Boston public schools. It was during this time that she met Lou Stamberg, the son of a prominent Allentown family who was working on a law degree at Harvard. Susan and Lou hit it off and were married in 1962. Lou was an equality minded individual and the couple were life partners from day one becoming known as “SueLou.” After their honeymoon they moved to Washington, D.C. where Lou landed a job in short order. While Sue struggled to find a job that allowed her to use her intellect and abilities.  

Eventually Susan took a job as a secretary for The New Republic and was, in her words “bored silly,” before getting a tip from a friend that the local educational radio station WAMU-FM, a non-profit educational radio station, was looking for a producer for a new public affairs program. The experimental current affairs program launched on May 3, 1971, was named All Things Considered; and it became the flagship program of the new National Public Radio (NPR). In 1972, when Susan became co-host of the program, she also became the first woman to co-host a national news program. Susan was co-host of All Things Considered from 1972 – 1986.

In addition to her work on All Things Considered, Susan hosted a newly created program, Weekend Editions Sunday and filled in a guest host for the show Morning Edition.

Today Susan is a Special Correspondent for N.P.R. 

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Linda Wertheimer: Linda Wertheimer, was born Linda Cozby in Carlsbad, New Mexico in 1943. She was the daughter of businessman and grocer Vernon Crosby and his wife June who was a member of the Women’s Club and the local Concert Listener Lectures music series.

Linda grew up reading the local newspaper, The Current-Argus and listening to the local radio station KAVE-AM 1240. And as a youth, Linda was captivated when she saw pioneering female journalist Pauline Frederick on television reporting from the United Nations. While in high school, Linda won a National Merit Scholarship going on to attended Wellesley College, located near Boston. Subsequently, she was part of a college exchange program that allowed her to travel to London and work for the B.B.C. for seventeen months. After returning to Boston she looked for a job and found many job openings but none that would allow a woman to use her intellect as a fully-fledged journalist.  She eventually landed a job with radio station WCBS in New York. During this time she met Fred Wertheimer who was then working as a legal counsel for Massachusetts Congressman Silvio Conte in Washington.

Linda and Fred were married in 1969 and took their honeymoon in Europe, before returning to the United States. Fred then return to his job working for Congressman Silvio, while Linda looked for work that would allow her to be a bona fide journalist and found nothing. After a year, Fred, who like Lou Stamberg was both a partner to his wife and supported her quest to a position that allowed her to use her intellect and abilities, decided to take a sabbatical from his job so he could assist his wife in finding a suitable job; then Fred overheard the news that N.P.R. was being launched, via 90 stations in 30 states, with its headquarters being located in Washington. Fred took Linda’s resume over to N.P.R.’s headquarters. And Bill Siemering, a member of the NPR Board and Program Director of the getting ready to launch and yet-to-be named news program, interviewed Linda and hired her as a production assistant.

Siemering was looking for staff that were creative, enthusiastic about creating the program and eager to work as part of team, and he was game to hire anyone, of either sex, that fit that proverbial bill. So Linda found herself working in as team player in a creative environment where she could use her intellect, and she did in many ways – including coming up with the name of the then un-named radio show – All Things Considered.

In the days leading up to the launch of All Things Considered, Linda became the director of the program and was integral part of the subsequent success of All Thing Considered.

She went on to become the first person to broadcast live from the U.S. Senate chamber; she traveled the country reporting on presidential races, anchored 10 presidential nomination conventions and 12 election nights, and did award-winning work as both a National Political Correspondent and a Congressional Correspondent for NPR.

Today Linda is a Senior National Correspondent for N.P.R.

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Nina Totenberg: Nina Totenberg was born in New York City in 1944, the daughter of virtuoso violinist Roman Totenberg and his wife Julliard educated pianist Melanie Schroder.

When Nina was a child Roman was the director of classical music at WQXR radio in N.Y.C and the family listened to the radio. Nina grew up reading and loving Nancy Drew Mysteries, wrote stories for her high school magazine, the Scarsdale High Jabberwock.

After high school Nina attended Boston University and began studying communications; but quickly learned that college wasn’t for her. So she dropped out and began looking for a job in the news field. She landed a job at newspaper the Boston Record-American covering the only subjects available for women reporters – the Society pages, i.e. society news, stories on fashion, recipes etc. Frustrated by being limited to working on soft news, Nina longed to do more and so she volunteered to work the night shift. Covering the night shift, without being paid, allowed her to work on hard news stories; granted without credit; but it did allow her to branch out and become a more seasoned journalist.

Nina went on to work for the Peabody Times, a paper that had a circulation of just several thousand and where the administrative staff didn’t care if a reporter was male of female as long as he or she could produce content at a furious pace.  Unfortunately, the paper went out of business and Nina found herself looking for another job. The time was the early 70’s, an era that was seeing the beginning of the Women’s Rights Movement and when the glass ceiling was starring to crack; and Nina landed a job with the Washington paper Roll Call covering the Supreme Court. Nina knew little of the workings of the Supreme Court at the time but was fierce in her determination to learn.

Nina went on to work for National Observer and the New Times papers, and when she had questions about supreme court cases she contracted the author of the brief in question, including in the sex discrimination case Reed v. Reed (1971), a Rutgers University Law Professor, named Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

With her intellect, fierce determination to succeed and great curiosity Nina began to break stories. When President Nixon was about to nominate a Minnesota judge, Harry Blackmun to the Supreme Court, Nina went and interviewed Blackmun’s mother who gave her a scoop telling her that her son and the chief justice of the court were old friends and spoke to each other frequently. Thus Totenberg was able to add that exclusive note of interest to her story on Blackmun when he was nominated by Nixon shortly thereafter. And in 1971, as author Napoli notes Nina “set the White House on its ear” by relaying the list of names on President Nixon’s secret list of possible Supreme Court justice nominees.

In 1974 she was hired by N.P.R. to cover the Washington beat with a focus on the Supreme Court, and she’s been working for N.P.R ever since. Over the years she has covered many notable stories and won a number of awards; one of the most notable being the George Foster Peabody award received by N.P.R. for her reports chronicling the charges of sexual harassment made by Oklahoma Law Professor Anita Hill against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas in 1991.

Today, Nina continues her work for N.P.R. as a Correspondent of Legal Affairs.

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Cokie Roberts: Cokie Roberts was born Mary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborne Boggs in New Orleans in 1944. She was the daughter of Louisiana Congressmen Hale Boggs and his wife Lindy.

Congressman Boggs represented Louisiana’s second congressional district from 1947 – 1972; thus the Boggs children, Cokie, Tommy and Barbara, spent a great deal of time in Washington while they were growing up. Author Napoli well sums up the influence living in Washington and having a congressman for a father had on the children by noting they received “political training by osmosis” and “roamed the halls of the Capitol, the consummate playground, becoming as intimate with the hideaways as with their own back yard.”

Cokie graduated from high school in 1960 and went on to attend Wellesley College. And during her college years, while attending the annual congress of the National Student Association at Ohio State she met Steven Roberts, a Harvard student studying government who wrote for Harvard’s daily newspaper the Crimson. The couple hit it off and were married in 1966; after which they set up shop in New York City; Steve working for the New York Times and Cokie working at a local TV production company on a program called Meeting Of The Minds, which ran on Sundays prior to NBC’s premier political discussion show Meet The Press.

Early in their married years Cokie and Steve had two children; and as a young mother Cokie realized that in order to live a fulfilling life she had to work outside the home at something more than the traditional role of a woman as a wife and mother; and she had to find a job that was equal to her intellect. She took a number of unsatisfying jobs as she struggled against the glass ceiling of the era just as Susan, Linda and Nina had. Steve’s job with the Times then took the family first to California and then to Greece where he became bureau chief; and where the family lived several years. While they were in Greece, Cokie did some freelance reporting, sending audio stories back to The Nation and CBS; and one of these stories appeared, with a photo of Cokie, on the Evening News with Walter Cronkite and become her first national news story.

After a few years Steve was offered a position in Thailand which he turned down; instead accepting a position in Washington D.C. And Cokie, who had been enjoying the freelance journalistic work she had been doing and knew she wanted to continue being a reporter, was displeased by this turn of events believing that she wouldn’t be able to find a job that did her intellect and abilities justice when they returned to Washington.

Shortly after the Roberts family returned to Washington in 1977, Steve, who worked at the New York Times bureau in D.C. had a new co-worker take the desk next to his – Judith Miller. When he asked Judith where she had worked before she said National Public Radio. N.P.R. was not yet the household name it would become; and Steve had never heard of it. He discovered the N.P.R.’s Washington headquarters was just a few blocks from his office and the next day, to save Cokie a trip, he took her resume to the NPR office and left it in the hand of a very capable journalist – Nina Totenberg.

Cokie was hired by N.P.R. as a contract employee and within months was promoted to a salaried reporter position. Her charming, disarming and straight the point style served her well and she went on to serve as NPR’s Congressional Correspondent for a decade, while also contributing reports to the nightly program the MacNeil Lehrer Report.

In 1988 Roberts left NPR to work as a political correspondent for ABC on their World News Tonight program, hosted by Peter Jennings. She also worked as guest host for the news program Nightline and co-anchored the Sunday morning show This Week with Sam Donaldson. Thus Cokie, like Susan, Linda and Nina before her was able to break through the glass ceiling and become a successful and famous reporter.

Cokie Roberts died of cancer in 2019.

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Books Written by N.P.R.’s Founding Mother’s

Susan Stamberg:

Every Night At Five: Susan Stamberg’s All Things Considered Book (1982)

Talk: NPR’s Susan Stamberg Considers All Things (1993)

Linda Wertheimer:

Listening to America: Twenty-five Years in the Life of a Nation as Heard on National Public Radio (1995)

Nina Totenberg:

No books – but many, many news stories!

Cokie Roberts:

We Are Our Mothers’ Daughters: Revised and Expanded Edition (1998)

From This Day Forward by Cokie & Steven V. Roberts (2000)

Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation (2004)

Ladies of Liberty (2009)

Our Haggadah: Uniting Traditions for Interfaith Families by Cokie & Steven V. Roberts (2011)

Capital Dames: The Civil War and the Women of Washington (2015)

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Videos:

National Press Club Book Launch: Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie with author Lisa Napoli, Susan Stemberg, Nina Totenberg & Linda Wertheimer (2021) (National Press Club)

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“A Thousand Hours of Talk” with NPR Correspondent and Host Susan Stamberg (2018) (Bedford Community Television)

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Senior NPR Correspondent Linda Wertheimer at Mills College (2013) (Mills College)

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Supreme Revenge: Nina Totenberg (interview) 2020 (PBS: FRONTLINE)

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An Evening with Cokie Roberts (2017) (LBJ Library)

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Legendary journalist Cokie Roberts dies at 75: Special Report | ABC News (2019) (ABC)

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A list of some of the pioneering women journalist prior to Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie mentioned in the book (should anyone wish to do additional research…)

Sophie B. Altman

Lindy Boggs

Nancy Dickerson

Pauline Frederick

Dr. Mira Komarovsky

Mrs. Helen Hill Miller

Judith Miller

Marie Torre

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Bibliography

Print:

Napoli, L. (2021). Susan, Linda, Nina, and Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR. Harry N. Abrams.

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Online Sources:

Allen, B., & Neuman, S. (2019, September 17). Cokie Roberts, Pioneering Journalist Who Helped Shape NPR, Dies At 75. N.P.R. Retrieved January 5, 2022, from https://www.npr.org/2019/09/17/761050916/cokie-roberts-pioneering-female-journalist-who-helped-shape-npr-dies-at-75

George Washington University. (n.d.). Roberts, Steven V. | GW School of Media & Public Affairs | The George Washington University. GW School of Media & Public Affairs. Retrieved January 5, 2022, from https://smpa.gwu.edu/roberts-steven-v

N.P.R. (n.d.-a). Linda Wertheimer Senior National Correspondent. Retrieved January 5, 2022, from https://www.npr.org/people/1931801/linda-wertheimer

N.P.R. (n.d.-b). Nina Totenberg Correspondent, Legal Affairs. Retrieved January 5, 2021, from https://www.npr.org/people/2101289/nina-totenberg

N.P.R. (n.d.). Susan Stamberg Special Correspondent. Retrieved January 5, 2022, from https://www.npr.org/people/2101242/susan-stamberg

P.B.S. (2021, February 3). Nina Totenberg. Finding Your Roots. Retrieved January 5, 2022, from https://www.pbs.org/weta/finding-your-roots/about/meet-our-guests/nina-totenberg

Premiere Speakers. (n.d.). Susan Stamberg | Bio | Premiere Speakers Bureau. N.P.R. Retrieved January 5, 2022, from https://premierespeakers.com/susan_stamberg/bio

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SSCL Adult Book Club Reading List January – June 2022

January 14, 2022: Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro (303 pages)

February 11, 2022: Let Me Tell You What I Mean by Joan Didion (149 pages) & Tuesday by David Wiesner (copies will be available at the January meeting)

March 11, 2022: Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine by Gail Honeyman (325 pages)

April 8, 2022: Born A Crime: Stories From A South African Childhood by Trevor Noah (288 pages)

May 2022: The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner (301 pages)

June 2022: Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz (236 pages)