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A Trickster Wandering Far and Near in Search of Common Wisdom
Teresa Howard Dean was an early master of the rising art of human-interest writing, but her adventurous nature drew her to cover subjects sometimes dangerous and other times very down to earth. She covered the Lakota Sioux shortly after Wounded Knee, for instance, but then wrote about the reactions of ordinary people to the Chicago World's Fair. Eventually she would become a household name and cover the Spanish-American War, rebellions in Mexico and Cuba, and the Boxer Rebellion in China. This study finds Howard to represent Jung's trickster and wanderer archetypes, as during Howard's journeys she sought personal enlightenment but only within the boundaries of contemporaneous middle-class customs and norms.
In the 1890s, a cadre of adventurous women advanced in the mostly male kingdom of journalism. On their journeys of selfdiscovery, these "ladies of the press" introduced human-interest writing as a magic carpet ride of the heart that transported readers to events.' Teresa Howard Dean, a columnist whose signature always appeared with her dispatches, excelled in this new arena of blending feelings with facts. She made history as a contender for the title of first female war correspondent, commenting on the Wounded Knee Massacre for the Chicago Herald and later (with official permission from Secretary of War Russell A. Alger) reporting from U.S. military forts and hospitals during the SpanishAmerican War. In the twentieth century, she covered insurrections in the Philippines, Mexico, and Cuba.2
Dean exemplified both the New Journalism and the New Woman, two cultural phenomena that appeared almost in tandem. Many college-educated New Women moved to the city looking for opportunities in the male-dominated work world. Not even the depression known as the Panic of 1893 that left multitudes impoverished could check the social upheavals that progress left in its wake. For example, U.S. suffrage activist Susan B. Anthony offered living proof that a single woman not only could support herself but also could win public approval and maintain social respectability. She inspired girls to challenge entrenched gender assumptions. The depression of 1893 did not dampen the hopes of girls to improve their prospects via education and risky life choices.
Inventions also changed public perceptions. As the bicycle freed women from...