|
Why do we love Iris?
Born the eldest of seven children in the small town of Maidenhead in England, Iris accompanied her father to London in the early 1920s where he opened a cinema. Obtaining an exclusive contract with United Artists (a film-production collective made up of Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and DOL of Famer Mary Pickford, among others), Iris's father's cinema was the showplace for many of the most popular films of the day. Iris ran the refreshment counter and sold tickets. She also wrote synopses of the films to post outside the theater. An editor for the London Daily Express read these synopses and asked Iris if she would write reviews for the paper. She began covering other arts and "women's" features, but she longed for meatier subjects. Eventually finding her chance by finagling an expose on a brothel frequented by London's power elite that no other reporter had managed to crack (without her editor's knowledge), Iris was given the opportunity to cover "real news."
Upon her marriage and the birth of her two children, Iris scaled back her journalistic endeavors until the late 1930s when war came to Britain. Enduring the bombing of her neighborhood during the London Blitz, Iris sent her children to safety with relatives and set out to cover the war. Unsuccessful in her attempts to gain access to the field of battle with British troops, she turned to the American government. Receiving front-line credentials, Iris reported on the war for the Boston Globe, the BBC, and the London Daily Herald. Iris crossed the Channel on June 7, 1944 (the day after the D-Day landing) and accompanied General Eisenhower's First Army as they crossed the Rhine into the heart of Germany. She was with the army to document the horror they found at the liberation of the Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps.
In 1946, after divorcing and moving to the United States with her children, Iris published her experiences of the war, No Woman's World. Newly married to First Army colonel Red Akers, Iris continued to write and report for various newspapers and the government, including the Voice of America broadcasting network. A determined, smart woman of great wit and uncommon accomplishment, Iris has been an inspiration to generations of female journalists, including her daughter, columnist Patricia Perry, and her great-granddaughter, editor and writer (and original DOL) E. Alison Tweedie-Perry.
|
| |
|
Biography:
Born - September 21, 1904
Maidenhead, Berkshire, England
Died - October 7, 1997
Glen Burnie, Maryland
|
|
| |
|
In her own words -- On the battle to cover the battlefield, No Woman's World (1946):
"The British and American War Departments differed officially in their attitude toward that most horrific of all the horrific developments of modern war - the woman war correspondent. The British War Office, voicing the dictates of Monty, who regarded women in the field as bad luck, bad business, and something to be scotched vigorously as an enemy advance, said flatly, 'We will not tolerate them'."
"[...] The Americans, on the other hand, admitted that 'certain phases of war should be covered by women'. They issued them with uniforms, innoculations, the simulated rank of Captain, the handicap of military discipline, and the alleged status of a fully accredited correspondent. [...] It was generally conceded that sex could be a handicap, but had better not be, since 'womanhood' as such had no place on a battlefield.
"
On the horrors of war, No Woman's World (1946):
"Time was taken out to bury the men, but carcasses of cattle were everywhere. I don't know why the sight of a flock of sheep bowled stiffly on their sides, or a cow with the soft, flabby folds of her neck stretched taut to the sky, or a horse with his four legs jutting from a bloated belly, should seem more sadly to highlight the horridness of war than anything it does to men. I know only that it did. Maybe it's because animals are so unresponsible for it all."
In others' words:
"She has made several scoops of real news that men missed, because of her daring, enthusiasm, originality and scorn of personal comfort."
~Jack Hazard, Boston Globe (20th March, 1945)
"For months she was one of a small group of women correspondents who fought for their right to use the press camps on the same basis as the male correspondents and she finally shared in the victory for feminine rights. Since that victory she has stayed regularly with 1st Army."
~Carlyle Holt, Boston Globe (19th April, 1945)
|
|
