Carol Weld (March 19, 1903 – March 31, 1979) was an American journalist. She worked for various New York newspapers and as a foreign correspondent for news agencies in Paris. She was a founding member of the
Overseas Press Club
The Overseas Press Club of America (OPC) was founded in 1939 in New York City by a group of foreign correspondents. The wire service reporter Carol Weld was a founding member, as was the war correspondent Peggy Hull. The club seeks to maintain ...
and collaborated with
Frank Buck on ''
Animals Are Like That''.
Early life
Carol Weld (née Florence Carol Greene) was the daughter of
Sonia Greene
Sonia Haft Greene Lovecraft Davis (March 16, 1883 – December 26, 1972) was an American one-time pulp fiction writer and amateur publisher, businesswoman and milliner who bankrolled several fanzines in the early twentieth century. She is note ...
and stepdaughter of
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft (, ; August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American writer of Weird fiction, weird, Science fiction, science, fantasy, and horror fiction. He is best known for his creation of the Cthulhu Mythos.
Born in Provi ...
. She broke with her mother when Sonia wouldn't let her marry her half-uncle, and left Sonia's apartment when she could, completing only three years of high school. She was married to a newspaperman,
John Weld, from 1927-1932. John Weld was a reporter for the ''
New York Herald Tribune
The ''New York Herald Tribune'' was a newspaper published between 1924 and 1966. It was created in 1924 when Ogden Mills Reid of the '' New York Tribune'' acquired the '' New York Herald''. It was regarded as a "writer's newspaper" and compet ...
'' in Paris and the ''
New York American
:''Includes coverage of New York Journal-American and its predecessors New York Journal, The Journal, New York American and New York Evening Journal''
The ''New York Journal-American'' was a daily newspaper published in New York City from 1937 ...
'' and ''
New York World
The ''New York World'' was a newspaper published in New York City from 1860 to 1931. The paper played a major role in the history of American newspapers as a leading national voice of the Democratic Party. From 1883 to 1911 under publisher Jo ...
'' in New York City, wrote screenplays for Columbia and Universal, as well as fiction and non-fiction books.
Journalism
Carol Weld worked on the local staffs of the ''
New York American
:''Includes coverage of New York Journal-American and its predecessors New York Journal, The Journal, New York American and New York Evening Journal''
The ''New York Journal-American'' was a daily newspaper published in New York City from 1937 ...
'' and the ''
New York Herald Tribune
The ''New York Herald Tribune'' was a newspaper published between 1924 and 1966. It was created in 1924 when Ogden Mills Reid of the '' New York Tribune'' acquired the '' New York Herald''. It was regarded as a "writer's newspaper" and compet ...
'' before going to Paris in the early 1930s. In a 1928 article for the ''New York Times'', she lamented that the automobile had mostly replaced the blacksmith, whose work consisted "chiefly of designing and reproducing wrought iron door hinges, candelabra of the twelfth century, lamps and smoking accessories and other objects which once upon a time were utilitarian. An ironworker finds it comparatively simple to be artistic after the early American manner by studying the art magazines."
Foreign correspondent
When Weld arrived in Paris in the late nineteen twenties, foreign journalism did not pay well. She subsisted on a meager salary and on the sale of some of her drawings of American life to Arthur Moss, publisher of an art magazine, ''Gargoyle'', Weld worked for The Universal Service, International News Service and United Press. One of her most memorable articles was "King Bites Dog," in which she advanced the theory that the abdication of
Edward VIII
Edward VIII (Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David; 23 June 1894 – 28 May 1972), later known as the Duke of Windsor, was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Empire, and Emperor of India, from 20 January ...
was due to conservative objections to his "political color" rather than to his romance with Mrs.
Wallis Simpson
Wallis, Duchess of Windsor (born Bessie Wallis Warfield, later Spencer and then Simpson; June 19, 1896 – April 24, 1986) was an American socialite and the wife of Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor (former King Edward VIII). Their intentio ...
. The best part is her account of meeting the Prince of Wales, as he then was, in a second-class carriage carrying some of his own baggage:
"It was midsummer in 1934 when I covered the departure of the Prince and Mrs. Simpson for Biarritz. At the
Gare d'Orsay
The Gare d'Orsay () is a former Paris railway station and hotel, built in 1900 to designs by Victor Laloux, Lucien Magne and Émile Bénard; it served as a terminus for the Chemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans (Paris–Orléans railway). It w ...
the deluxe afternoon train had departed with a tin-whistle toot but no sign of royalty or a Baltimore woman. Ric, my fox terrier, who was a much better disguise to press-shy celebrities than a pair of false whiskers and who was responsible for two beats I had scored, pulled at his leash, scampering toward the ''deuxième classe'' train.
Royalty traveling second? I had my doubts, but I lifted Ric to the platform. He tugged, pulled me into the corridor of the ''deuxième wagon-lit''. Ahead of me the Prince of Wales came from one door and disappeared through the next, carrying a piece of luggage. Man Bites Dog, I thought. On the train must be valets, his aide-decamp, then Major
eneral JohnAird
he Prince's Equerry">Equerry.html" ;"title="he Prince's Equerry">he Prince's Equerry and Scotland Yard detectives. Yet I saw the Prince moving baggage. In such democratic tendencies lay nourishment for a much bigger dog. This, as I realized long after, had been Prince Bites Puppy. The bigger the man, the bigger the dog. Before I could turn Ric about, the future King and Duke of Windsor again emerged and we collided in the narrow passageway."
Weld was a founding member of the
Overseas Press Club
The Overseas Press Club of America (OPC) was founded in 1939 in New York City by a group of foreign correspondents. The wire service reporter Carol Weld was a founding member, as was the war correspondent Peggy Hull. The club seeks to maintain ...
. When the Paris paper, the ''Tribune'', died in 1934, a victim of the Depression, Weld, under the headline "Girl Reporter Tells It All on Last Day," affectionately recalled some of her colleagues' "conversational identifications." Ralph Jules Frantz: "Did you get the story? Swell!" Louis Atlas: "I'm fed up. Where you going to eat?" May Birkhead: "Be that as it may ..." B. J. Kospoth: "What's that? I've been at the Embassy all afternoon. But there's no story there." Edmond Taylor: "Call me up if anything breaks." Wilfred Barber: "That was July 2, 1887 at 3:10 in the morning, and it was raining, because ..." Robert Sage: "There's not enough air in here, let's open a window." Alex Small: "My dear fellow! Didn't you know? Why of course, Louis XIV, when he built the palace at Versailles, said . . ." Robert L. Stern: "You can't write that! You gotta have a new lead." Mary Fentress: "American Hospital? Anybody dead?"
Collaboration with Frank Buck
Weld was co-author of one book with
Frank Buck: ''
Animals Are Like That'' (1939).
Weld did public relations for Buck, in particular for his 1939 World's Fair Jungleland
exhibit, and also handled his west coast publicity.
Later life
In 1940-42 Carol Weld worked for the British-American Ambulance Corps. Additionally, she organized and served as corps chairman for the West Coast Committee for the American Volunteer Ambulance Corps in France (at 9710 and 11716 Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles). From 1943-48, Weld was a press representative for RKO Radio. In 1951, with a colleague, Dickson Hartwell, Carol Weld wrote an admiring article about Taborian Hospital in
Mound Bayou, Mississippi
Mound Bayou is a city in Bolivar County, Mississippi, Bolivar County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 1,533 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census, down from 2,102 in 2000. It was founded as an independent black community in ...
. When the hospital opened in 1942, African-American patients in the
Delta
Delta commonly refers to:
* Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet
* D (NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta"), the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet
* River delta, at a river mouth
* Delta Air Lines, a major US carrier ...
could, for the first time, walk through the front door of a medical facility rather than through the side entrance marked "colored." Until 1967 the Taborian Hospital and its fraternal rival in Mound Bayou, the Friendship Clinic, which had been founded in 1948, provided medical services to thousands of Mississippi African-Americans. In 1954, Weld worked as the editor for the ''New Smyrna Times'' in
New Smyrna, Florida
New Smyrna Beach is a city in Volusia County, Florida, United States, located on the central east coast of the state, with the Atlantic Ocean to the east. The downtown section of the city is located on the west side of the Indian River and the ...
.
Weld retired to Florida (1512 Glencoe Road, Winter Park) and worked as a freelance writer.
She died in Miami after a long illness.
References
External links
Carol Weld papersat the
American Heritage Center
The American Heritage Center is the University of Wyoming's repository of manuscripts, rare books, and the university archives. Its collections focus on Wyoming and the Rocky Mountain West (including politics, settlement, Native Americans, and W ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Weld, Carol
1903 births
1979 deaths
20th-century American Jews
20th-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century American women journalists
20th-century American journalists
20th-century American women writers
American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent
American women non-fiction writers
Jewish American journalists
Jewish American non-fiction writers
Jewish women writers
Writers from New York (state)