Through the Opening Door

About the Book

I also began to recognize the Depression’s effect on everyday life, including my family’s. I learned not only to be thrifty, but more importantly that I would probably have to work for a living after I graduated… In this, I was probably ahead of the economic curve, as I wondered how my Vassar courses would prepare me to earn a living after graduation. - 1937

Adventurous, practical, and resolute, pioneer journalist Nona Baldwin Brown has led an accomplished life, with a high-profile, globe-trotting newspaper career spanning more than three decades, including World War II, labor unionization, the civil rights movement, and the Kennedy era. Written with astonishing clarity and depicted by well-preserved photographs, her memoir illuminates not only her inspiring success in a man’s world but also the ideological tides of the twentieth century.

About the Author

Born on May 11, 1918, Nona Pugh Baldwin Brown grew up in Montclair, New Jersey. She graduated from Vassar College and Columbia’s School of Journalism and served two years as a navy press officer. She was hired by New York Times in May 1940 and remained as a staff writer for its Washington bureau for thirty-four years. She is now a widow and lives in Washington, DC.