Dorothy Thompson deserves to be far better remembered than she presently is.
Image Credit: Public Domain (via Picryl)
In a 1990 interview, legendary English singer and songwriter David Bowie opined that being famous was not itself “a rewarding thing.” The co-composer (with John Lennon) of the 1975 funk rock hit, Fame claimed that “The most you can say is that it gets you a seat in restaurants.”
Fame is certainly fickle. Some people get it but don’t deserve it; others don’t get it when they do. It can also be disappointingly fleeting.
Its enemies include short memories, ideological bias, and new generations.
Fanny Crosby comes to mind. When my grandparents were young, millions of Americans were singing her songs. One President of the United States after another (21 in all) wanted to meet her. When she died in 1915, she was widely regarded as among the best known and most beloved women in the country. Now, I’d wager not five percent of Americans could tell you a thing about her.
Another example of fame won and lost, the subject of this two-part essay, is Dorothy Thompson. Does that name ring any bells?
Thompson deserves to be far better remembered than she presently is. Most Americans of just 80 years ago could tell you exactly who she was. Born in 1893 in Lancaster, New York, she was broadcasting news and commentary on the radio at a time when women were widely supposed to stay in the kitchen. As a foreign correspondent in the late 1920s and 1930s, she was “the undisputed...
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