For the 13th episode of the Journalism History podcast, host Nick Hirshon spoke with Pamela Walck and Ashley Walter, authors of “Soaring out of the Private Sphere: How Flyin’ Jenny and Comics Helped Pioneer a New Path for Women’s Work during World War II” in the Winter 2019 issue of Journalism History.
Walck is an assistant professor of multiplatform journalism in the Media Department at Duquesne University. Walck earned her master’s degree from Duquesne and is now a Ph.D. student in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communication at Penn State University.
This episode is sponsored by the Media Department at Duquesne University.
Transcript
Nick Hirshon: [00:00:06] Welcome to Journalism History, a podcast that rips out the pages of your history books to re-examine the stories you thought you knew, and the ones you were never told. I’m your host, Nick Hirshon, guiding you through your own drafts of history.
[00:00:24] This episode is sponsored by the Media Department at Duquesne University. Located in the heart of Pittsburgh, the Media Department uses technology, critical thinking, and artistic expression to turn students into storytellers, designers, video producers, and visual communicators who engage the public in innovative ways today and tomorrow.
[00:00:48] She was a pilot whose daring adventures soared off the funny pages. Jenny Dare flew to fame during World War II as the heroine of a newspaper comic strip named Flyin’ Jenny, a culturally significant character who eased American minds about the shifting roles of women in wartime. In this episode, we discuss Flyin’ Jenny with Pamela Walck of Duquesne University and Ashley Walter of Penn State University, who have chronicled the pioneering character in an article for the Winter 2018 issue of Journalism History. We explore how Flyin’ Jenny became a role model for assertive women even as she had to put up with male pilots calling her “honey.”
[00:01:30] Alright, so, Pam and Ashley, welcome to the Journalism History podcast.
Pam Walck: [00:01:33] Thank you so much for having us.
Ashley Walter: [00:01:35] Yeah. Thank you. We’re really excited to be here.
Nick Hirshon: [00:01:39] We’re here today to talk about your forthcoming article in Journalism History, and the title is “Soaring out of the Private Sphere: How Flyin’ Jenny and Comics Helped Pioneer a New Path for Women’s Work during World War II.” So, the first question for you, Pam, I understand that you had discovered this topic. How did you first hear about Flyin’ Jenny and why did you find her interesting enough that you wanted to research her?
Pam Walck: [00:02:02] Yeah. So, basically, I was working on my dissertation and I was looking at press coverage during World War II. And so, as a result, I was going through many, many microfilms and digital archives, looking at different coverage with newspapers in the US. And so in the process of going through the Boston Globe, I ended up somehow on the comic strip pages at one point, trying to look for a different section of the newspaper, and there she was. And I was just like, ‘What is this? This is really, really interesting.’ And so I remember downloading the PDF of that particular page and I may have gone down a rabbit trail at some point, you know, trying to figure out a little bit more about her, but realized that I had to kind of finish my dissertation, that was sort of important. And so I just kind of tucked this away and thought, ‘I hope I can get back to this, I’m really intrigued by this.’ And so fast forward almost a year, I was starting out my first year at Duquesne as an assistant professor, and Ashley was assigned to me as a grad assistant. And so I basically was like, ‘OK, this is what we’re going to do.’ So, I had her basically go through the Boston Globe and pull all the Flyin’ Jenny Sunday comic strips. And we started diving in, and the more we started reading, the more we started realizing that she was actually quite an exemplar in terms of how women were portrayed in the comics and just in general during that time period.
Nick Hirshon: [00:03:42] All right. So, I’d like to ask you guys about the creator of this comic strip, Russell Keaton. I understand he also drew for other comic strips, including Buck Rogers and Skyroads. So, Ashley, I’ll give this one to you. What can you tell us about Russell Keaton and what inspired him to create Flyin’ Jenny?
Ashley Walter: [00:03:59] So, Russell Keaton. He was inspired by his wife and his daughter. So, he wanted to create this really strong character. He also was extremely into aviation and some of his prior work also deals with aviation. So, he created Flyin’ Jenny in the image of his very young daughter and his wife. So, he gave Jenny his daughter’s blonde hair and then he said he gave Jenny’s beautiful features and fearlessness that reflected his wife, whose name was Virginia, but at the time, Jenny was a popular nickname. So, he actually named the character after his wife.
Nick Hirshon: [00:04:50] And can you describe Flyin’ Jenny the character? What are some of her characteristics, what does she do, etc.?
Ashley Walter: [00:04:59] Yeah. So, she is a rather fearless woman who is just obsessed with flying. She is very kind of stereotypical, pinup-esque. She has perfectly coiffed blonde hair, always, you know, perfect makeup and lipstick, is very thin and voluptuous, and beautiful, frankly. She has a lot of admirers, which makes, also, for a very fun comic strip too. There is an element of danger and of love. And flying is her biggest passion.
Nick Hirshon: [00:05:38] And I understand that Jenny’s archnemesis in the strip is a character named Spinner Martin, which is a really cool comic strip sort of name — this rotund, gruff flier who despises the idea of “lipstick pilots.” So, Pam, can you tell us a little bit about who Spinner Martin is in the strip?
Pam Walck: [00:05:54] Yes. Spinner is pretty much the typical bad guy, right. He tries to beat her at different races and events, and he loses. And so then he’s like, ‘Well, I’m not beyond cheating to try to beat her.’ Throughout early 1942, the comic strip on the Sunday side was pretty focused in on these two pilots, so you had Jenny in one plane and Spinner in another. And they both were flying for different companies that were trying to win the Naval Test Pilot to have the Navy contract with their companies to produce these planes. And so it was actually really fascinating because of Keaton’s, you know, interest in aviation, and he was a pilot himself. So, he really kind of took his readers through every little step that pilots and plane manufacturers had to go through in order to win military contracts to produce these planes on the behalf of the United States.
[00:07:02] And so in ’42, Spinner is doing everything he can to beat her in the skies. And when that doesn’t work he starts trying to set her up and frame her to make it look like she is trying to sabotage his plane. Her sidekick, Cyril Richmint, kind of reveals this conspiracy and saves the day and Jenny goes on to win the test trials despite that. And I believe Spinner gets locked up because he was trying to cheat on a federal contract.
Nick Hirshon: [00:07:36] And so, let’s talk about the groundbreaking nature of the strip. So, you explain in the article, women were already flying long before Flyin’ Jenny debuted in 1939. And you mentioned that Amelia Earhart took her first flying lesson in 1921 and bought her first aircraft just six months later. So, women taking flight was not necessarily a new concept, even though it wasn’t, maybe, predominant in society yet, but can you give us an idea a little bit what was different about Flyin’ Jenny in this case?
Pam Walck: [00:08:05] I think that it just kind of maybe made it a little bit more visual element in terms of women in the skies. So, you know during World War II, and our article doesn’t really go into this, but a lot of women were clamoring to fly on behalf of the government.
[00:08:27] And our article does actually talk a little bit about how there were two different efforts to try to permit women to fly planes and to assist with getting planes from the manufacturing plant to the combat field. Throughout ’42, basically the Senate and Congress was saying, ‘No, it’s too dangerous for women. We can’t have them doing that.’ But then as the war started ramping up, you start seeing the government actually approve authorizing the women’s auxiliary for the army, the wax and the waves. And so you start seeing women taking more nontraditional jobs and doing things on behalf of the military in an effort to free up every able-bodied man so that he can go into combat. And so I think with the comic strip, one of the things that we see is just by ’43, it’s not just Jenny, she has an entire crew of women who have joined her and they’re all working to help the government in terms of flying. So, I think that it just sort of is an example of how there were many women in the country who were eager to fly on behalf of the government, but the times were just not conducive for it like they are today.
Nick Hirshon: [00:09:54] Because you were coming into this when you were a master’s student, maybe it’s one of your first historical research projects, so, what did you find interesting about that?
Ashley Walter: [00:10:06] So, this was my very first take at research and it was really exciting for me. I did a lot of digging in the comics section, which as a first research assignment, it’s pretty fun. And it was kind of difficult to find these pages, so I ended up sometimes going down rabbit holes of other comic strips. But it was really exciting because I went into this, it was my first semester graduate master’s program, knowing that I wanted to do some kind of work with women. I had no idea that I would like journalism history so much. And so it was really exciting when Pam asked me to do this project with her. I was very enticed by the kind of fearlessness, this rare fearlessness, of women at the time. And I really learned a lot.
Nick Hirshon: [00:10:55] It seems like these sorts of partnerships are so exciting because now the two of you, obviously, can present this together and maybe work on more things. I want to talk to you guys about that later on. But just getting into the method, because you mentioned this a little bit, Pam. For this study it seems like you use fifty-five weekly installments of the Flyin’ Jenny comic strip published every Sunday in the Boston Globe from December 7, 1941, through December 27, 1942, and you explain that you picked Sunday, of course, because that edition would have reached the largest circulation, the largest potential number of readers. You focus on two main questions here, so I’ll ask you both of them and I’ll give each of you a chance to chime in here. Again, Ashley, just to go with you again. How did the plot of Flyin’ Jenny reflect the conflict between traditional and nontraditional work of women during the first year of the U.S. involvement in World War II?
Ashley Walter: [00:11:49] What’s really interesting with Jenny is that she just completely – she will not stay inside. She wants to fly no matter what. And her movement in the kind of public sphere, in the working sphere that traditionally was meant for men, especially with aviation, she was no matter what, with you know, Spinner calling her “Blondie,” people calling her, you know, lipstick pilot. She was constantly pushing against these gender norms to be not only a part of it but to excel in this kind of male-dominated world. What’s really interesting too, going back to the, to the love line of it, you know, she is proposed to many times throughout the strip. She has, you know, different love interests and it’s always one or the other. You know, there’s marriage or there’s flying, and she always constantly picks a career, which is very rare for 1942, I think is the first time she is proposed to.
Nick Hirshon: [00:12:53] So, it’s interesting that even though they’re presenting her as sort of an assertive woman and a role model, she is still facing the challenges of male attention, maybe unwanted male attention, and sometimes they’re presenting her in ways that are more traditionally of what a woman should expect. So, is she truly a role model there or is it something where she’s also just conforming to gender norms of the time?
Ashley Walter: [00:13:24] I would say she definitely is a role model because, you know, she’s excelling in this field and really pursuing her dreams. And I think that’s what makes her a role model, is that no matter what, she has all these barriers of being framed by Spinner and losing some love interests, but she really excels and does what she loves and you can tell she is very happy. But what’s interesting too is, you know, with the pinup angle is that she’s very beautiful and oftentimes is perceived, you know, as if she’s very attractive and desirable. And I think that also just fits in line with the era of trying to appeal to service men. And you know she couldn’t be too radical because, you know, there’s this kind of this push that women always have to remain beautiful. So, she’s going to rebel against the system, at least, you know, she was playing along with gender norms in that way.
Pam Walck: [00:14:31] And I would add to that too, you know, when we look at the time period when this was happening, you know, I think it was in ‘42 that Wonder Woman first came out. I know Jenny predates Wonder Woman, but Wonder Woman and her creator kind of really was pushing this idea of just, you know, women feeling empowered to the point that they could offer something to contribute to the war effort, something that they could contribute to society beyond just the domestic sphere. And so I think that in a lot of ways these comic strips and these other, you know, media imagery illustrations, Rosie the Riveter, images like that, really helped create this new possibility for women who, up until that point, unless they because of economics they were required to work outside the home, women generally weren’t. So, I think that it’s actually a really fascinating time period in terms of women and in the workplace.
Nick Hirshon: [00:15:38] The second question that you raised in the study relates to the use of paper dolls, and Ashley kind of got into this a little bit in her response. You explain that these were common in newspaper comic sections throughout the 1940s. Readers were encouraged to cut out their favorite characters and keep them long after the newspaper was discarded. So, how were the paper dolls of Jenny Dare used to deflect the conflict between traditional and non-traditional women’s work throughout 1942? And Pam, you can pick up on that one, and then we’ll let Ashley chime in.
Pam Walck: [00:16:09] Yeah. So, basically what we discovered as we read through that first year of U.S. involvement in the war and the first year of Flyin’ Jenny strips during that time period that whenever she had a storyline that was just really out of this world, you know, she is in the middle of the Navy test pilot testing, and her plane’s about to go down and it looks like you know it’s the end for Jenny, or you know she is flying off into the horizon with a new client for the company that manufactures planes. These storylines that are just like really over the top and her doing things that just women would not dream of doing during those strips, it was like they would anchor them at the end with these paper dolls. I mean, paper dolls have a long history in just pop culture and not just American culture. They originated in Europe, became popular in the US, but in some ways we kind of looked at these paper dolls and the timing of them as like, you know, almost like it’s okay for our audience to see her doing these wild and crazy things if at the very end we can anchor it with a more traditional pinup-style pose and dresses and cute outfits and all those things that kind of go back to that idea of like what American men were fighting for during the war years. So, it’s almost like, you know, it’s ok that she can do all this crazy stuff because at the end of the day she’s still this beautiful girl next door who likes to wear frilly dresses and look pretty.
Nick Hirshon: [00:18:00] And Ashley, anything you’d like to say about the use of the paper dolls of Jenny?
Ashley Walter: [00:18:05] Yes. The paper dolls are just one of my favorite parts. And in the beginning of her strip, the paper dolls weren’t used as much, and then very frequently toward the end of her storyline. And my favorite one, which I think really showed that she’s doing something, she’s fighting or doing some kind of secret mission against the Nazis, it starts to get very heavy in World War II, her storyline does, and in her paper doll below that, she has a garden-theme paper doll, a gardening dress, gardening hat, gardening gloves, and a basket. And it’s just the most frilly, ridiculous thing. And you know in the frames above she’s never, in her storyline, she’s not often wearing dresses. She’s usually in a jumpsuit or something and you know kind of like a work uniform. And so it’s just the juxtaposition between those two things that I think really proves that point with what Pam was just saying.
Nick Hirshon: [00:19:11] Just as a tangent here on paper dolls, because I saw the two of you at the October meeting of the American Journalism Historians Association where you were discussing some of this research, and it seems that a lot of people now may come up to you guys and talk about paper dolls and they remember them from their own youth. It’s something that is still I guess around a little bit, the American doll collection. But there’s not so much of paper dolls appearing in newspapers, certainly, is not a thing anymore. So, have the two of you encountered this a lot, of people saying, ‘Oh, you’re making me nostalgic for my childhood and I remember growing up with these and loving paper dolls?’
Pam Walck: [00:19:52] I mean, I think that the feedback that we got at the conference in October was more of ‘Yes, there’s something there, you’re onto it, keep digging.’ I think that there is definitely a nostalgia element to it. And since we’ve started looking at paper dolls as a whole, it’s like you see them everywhere now. It’s really remarkable. I think that it’s also fascinating too because you know, we’re in such a high-tech world, but yet paper is such a temporary thing. And yet these paper dolls are popping up in boutiques and shops and stuff like that. Wherever I go, I end up bumping into some sort of paper doll image so, it’s kind of funny in that regard. But yeah, I think that it’s interesting because in our current research we were sort of digging around and even with the Flyin’ Jenny, you know, there’s not been a lot of Mass Comm research looking at paper dolls. Most of that is more in, I guess, fashion history, and we’ve kind of had to borrow from other areas because there’s not been a lot of research looking at it.
Nick Hirshon: [00:21:08] And what do you think makes the paper doll special or unique as something that’s worthwhile to research any different than the traditional newspaper, TV, radio, whatever we tend to see at these mass communication history conferences?
Pam Walck: [00:21:21] I think that at least in the terms of paper dolls in the newspapers what that is sort of hinting at is this idea that, you know, newspapers were looking for ways to relate to new readers. And so during the height of the popularity of comics, it’s not surprising to me that they would have paper dolls in the Sunday newspaper section. They were certainly trying to get people you know interested in the newspaper. It was astounding to me when we started diving into this research that you know just the millions of people that would read the Sunday comic strip and we saw editorials written in the 1940s by academics who were really outraged at this very vulgar form of popular culture. It was kind of amusing.
Nick Hirshon: [00:22:23] Why did they find it so vulgar, the paper dolls? The way they were displayed? I mean, I saw in some of the photographs that are going to be running with your piece in Journalism History, you have Jenny Dare the kind of juxtaposition, right, of her being presented in her aviation outfit and then in the final frame you do see her baby in a bikini or kind of dress down. So, that’s what people are taking exception to mostly?
Pam Walck: [00:22:53] No, I mean, I believe that back in the day people were outraged by comics in general showing women running around in essentially their underwear. In particular, I think that some of the criticism was directed toward Wonder Woman and some of the other comic strips that had women so scantily dressed. I don’t know that that criticism was necessarily directed at paper dolls. I think that the paper dolls, people saw them as something that was generated and aiming toward younger readers, children. So, I think that that necessarily wasn’t offensive as much as just some of the superheroes that emerged in the comics during that time period and just how they presented themselves.
Ashley Walter: And also, too, in some of the frames and Flyin’ Jenny when it becomes around ’43 where it’s almost an all-female star cast in the plot, when they have their powwows and they’re talking, one of the frames is of the women talking, but essentially the camera lens is through a woman’s legs. You still kind of have this pinup style that’s really pervasive throughout the photos or the artwork.
Pam Walck: [00:24:16] And it’s interesting too because I know when I was in Savannah back when I was a reporter, I had a friend whose husband is a graphic artist and he was going to SCAD at the time, Savannah College of Art and Design, and one of the things that we would talk about is just like this idea that, you know, comic strips tend to put women in these really scanty outfits and, you know, kind of really playing into stereotypes and things like that. So, it’s interesting to me that you even as early as the 40s, this was happening. I think that the context of those discussions in Savannah were, you know, more modern comic strips, the Marvel and stuff like that. But those criticisms of how women are portrayed obviously were still at the forefront of discussions back in the ’40s when they first emerged as characters and in the comics.
Nick Hirshon: [00:25:07] And you’ve been mentioning some of the other characters that we tend to associate with graphic artist depictions of women from this time period, Brenda Starr, Rosie the Riveter, Wonder Woman. Although Jenny Dare predated many of those female characters that we associate with comic books and the illustrations of the era, but those characters still occupy space in the public consciousness in a way that Jenny does not. So, why do you think Jenny has been almost lost to time, in a sense, when some of those characters for whatever reason are still known by the public? And Ashley, we can start with you on that one.
Ashley Walter: [00:25:58] I think she had a very short run in terms of especially Wonder Woman. Russell Keaton, her creator, died very early from cancer. He was in his thirties. And so it had eventually been taken over by some other comic writers and artists, but when the war ended, and in one of her last strips, she talks about the boys coming home and she doesn’t really have a place anymore in flying, in the world of aviation. Basically, her daring plot disappears along with the war.
Pam Walck: [00:26:38] I would agree. And I do think that, you know, because her creator wasn’t around, I think that that perhaps played a big part of it. I think it was in the early to mid-90s, some of his artwork was rediscovered. I know we had found a book that was sort of a compilation of Russell Keaton’s artwork exclusively with Flyin’ Jenny. And so I mean I think that in graphic illustration circles, it’s probably a little bit more acknowledged, but just in the general public, because you know she didn’t last past much past the war, it just kind of was forgotten.
Nick Hirshon: [00:27:24] Well, that’s where you guys step in, right, and why it’s important for your research to come out. Usually at the end of a journal article we’ll talk about opportunities for future research. You’ve discussed it a little bit with the need for paper dolls research but anything else that you saw while researching Jenny that you feel maybe is your next project or just something else that you think scholars should be doing?
Pam Walck: [00:27:50] I mean, I would say that there is maybe more research to be done looking at comics and just how different people groups are portrayed and how that plays into stereotypes. I think that, you know, because comics are kind of looked at more as like a pop culture not a high culture type of thing, you know, maybe they’ve been slighted in the past. But, you know, they certainly are still making lots of money at the box office. So, I think that American infatuation with superheroes and comics and things like that, you know, is still alive and well. I think that also with comics in particular it’s interesting, because, you know, they say something about the era that they emerge in, in terms of, you know, why people turn to comics and comic heroes in certain times of uncertainty. And I often think about just in my own, you know, ponderings, you know, how is it that there are like five million Superman or Spider-Man movies? Now, I’m exaggerating because there’s not that many, really. But it just seems like every time you turn around there’s like a new Spider-Man origin story, and I’m just like, ‘Haven’t we covered that already?’ But on the flip side, I think that there is some truth to the fact that when you live in uncertain times, you look to, you know, some of these histories and these stories of heroes in a way that kind of help make sense of, you know, just what’s happening in the headlines. And we certainly saw that with Flyin’ Jenny in the 1940s because there’s a lot going on and there was a lot of uncertainty. And I think that the comic strips and seeing women doing things that weren’t necessarily social norms at the time definitely helped reassure people that it was OK. Everything was going to be OK. And I think sometimes we just need to hear that.
Nick Hirshon: [00:30:08] Is that your sense too, Ashley, of what we should be doing in the future, what you would encourage other mass communication scholars to look into?
Ashley Walter: [00:30:15] Yeah, I think that’s really important. One thing to piggyback off of, I think it’d be really interesting to look at kind of racial and ethnic dynamics happening there too, because there is a little bit of that in Flyin’ Jenny, when there is, you know, kind of a different nationality, it’s often derogatory. But then there’s also a portrayal of – there’s one woman from Mexico on her flying crew that’s daring and fearless just like Jenny. So, I do think that there’s something interesting there to see how that played in its time.
Pam Walck: [00:30:58] And another kind of off topic a little bit, but I think is really interesting, and I’ve only just begun to kind of scrape the surface on this with some research with the Pittsburgh Courier, though, is in the black press there’s a lot of comics as well. There’s editorial comics and there was a series of historical pieces that were done by various illustrators that kind of were in a black pride sort of sense, so sort of like kind of giving readers images and backstories or origin stories of different men and women, people of color, who did remarkable things and that was all presented to readers in illustration form. So, I think that you know from the historical perspective, what I’ve learned from this is that you know you can’t pooh-pooh the pop culture because growing up, I’m not gonna lie, I used to make fun of my brothers for all the comic books that they used to read, and they think it’s kind of funny now that I ended up doing research on comics, considering I gave them a lot of sibling grief growing up.
Nick Hirshon: [00:32:14] Yeah, well, it’s something that captures the American imagination in such a way as you say, Captain America, Spider-Man, all of the Avengers are very popular right now, so there is still something that is very important to the public, that they take some satisfaction in escapism maybe, and so we should be researching those sorts of topics. That’s what people are paying attention to. One just final thing I wanted to ask both you about is obviously the nature of your partnership, because we described how Ashley was a master student at Duquesne when Pam was starting there as an assistant professor. So, Pam, if you could just start out and I’ll ask Ashley on the other end but for you Pam, what do you think is important about being a mentor in this journalism history process, when you’re introducing somebody to research and to a different subject that maybe you’re excited about, you want to kind of stoke that passion in them. So, how do you approach that sort of thing and how did you do it with Ashley?
Pam Walck: [00:33:17] Yeah. Well, first off, I think that one of the biggest motivations for me in mentoring scholars is just the fact that I have had so many generous mentors over my years, both in my graduate program at Point Park University in Pittsburgh, and then at Ohio University at the Scripps School of Journalism. And so having had other established scholars kind of guide and direct me, it was important to me to be able to hopefully you know repeat that and pay it forward. So, I feel really fortunate because, you know, I had no idea whether Ashley would even be remotely interested in what I was interested in. And I know that when her cohort first came in, my chair at the time had mentioned that she was interested in women’s studies, and so he was hoping that this might be helpful for me. And it was a really wonderful partnership, because while Ashley, she had mentioned this was her first time doing academic research of this nature, I had done plenty of it during my doctoral work, so, like, I was prepared for that. But I was off in World War II land, so I wasn’t really looking at women and women’s studies. I never took any classes on women and feminism or any of that stuff, and so that was sort of like my weak spot. And fortunately, as we were going through this process, Ashley had that background and was giving me, you know, ‘I saw this and I think this might be something that we can talk about,’ and it was really, it turned out to be a wonderful partnership because we both had different strengths and, you know, when we put them together it worked out in a really fantastic way.
Nick Hirshon: [00:35:23] Yeah. For you, Ashley, on the other side of that. What was it like to partner with Pam and have her as a mentor on your first major research project?
Ashley Walter: [00:35:31] I love gushing about Pam because it is so wonderful. I went into this master’s program thinking, ‘Oh, I really want to teach. And I can’t wait to do that.’ And she pulled me into this research project, and I really just fell in love with it. I never thought journalism history was going to be the kind of path I wanted to go down and, when I was applying for doctoral programs, I was keeping an open mind. But at the end of the day, when I thought about the questions I had and the research I want to do, it kept always going back to journalism history and I really attribute that to Pam both showing me how to do it and how to foster an appreciation for it. And she just was really wonderful along the way. If I had an idea, even if they were duds, she was always really encouraging and always gently pushed me in the right direction and just really taught me so much.
Nick Hirshon: [00:36:42] Sounds like that’s a partnership that we can expect to see maybe more in the pages of Journalism History. Are you two are going to be collaborating on anything else in the future, you think?
Pam Walck: [00:36:50] I think so, yeah. We have some plans for some paper dolls and creating some oral histories so I’m really excited about that. I think the big trick now is working around Ashley’s busy doc studies program because I remember what that was like.
Ashley Walter: Help!
Pam Walck: But no, it’s been fun and I’m looking forward to the future research that we do. I don’t know what all it will be, but I am very, very thankful that I found a kindred spirit when it comes to some of this stuff.
Ashley Walter: Me too. Aw shucks.
Nick Hirshon: [00:37:35] Well, thank you guys. It’s very clear that you both are really excited about this project, you’re passionate and you have an affinity for working together, so it’s really great to talk to you. Thank you guys for coming on.
Pam Walck: Thank you so much for having us.
[00:37:52] Thank you so much for tuning in. Additional thanks to our sponsor, the Media Department at Duquesne University. Until next time, I’m your host, Nick Hirshon, signing off with the words of Edward R. Murrow: “Good night, and good luck.”
Journalism History journal 