{{Short description|American journalist (1871–1926)}} {{Infobox person | name = Theodora Bean | image = TheodoraBean1926.png | alt = A middle-aged white woman with short dark greying hair, wearing a dark top or jacket with a white collar | caption = Theodora Bean, from a 1926 publication | birth_name = Edna Belle Bean | birth_date = March 26, 1871 | birth_place = Anoka, Minnesota, U.S. | death_date = August 5, 1926 (age 55) | death_place = New York City | other_names = | occupation = Journalist | years_active = | known_for = | notable_works = | spouse(s) = | relatives = }}
'''Theodora Bean''' (March 26, 1871 – August 5, 1926), born '''Edna Belle Bean''',<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Frey |first=Caitlin |date=September–October 2013 |title=Small Town Girl Makes it Big! Edna 'Theodora' Bean |url=https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c7599c5f4e5310b4740b63d/t/625888f0e792007c4e46b47d/1649969395949/Vol.+43+History+Center+News+-+2013-1.pdf |journal=History Center News |volume=43 |issue=5 |pages=1, 4}}</ref> was an American journalist and suffragist. She was a founder and president of the Newspaper Women's Club of New York, and started her own news syndicate, the T-Bean Syndicate, shortly before her death.
==Early life and education== Bean was born in Anoka, Minnesota, the daughter of Martin Van Buren Bean and Louisa Jane McFarlan Bean. Her mother was from Canada; her father was from Maine. Her father was a Union Army veteran of the American Civil War, and ran a hardware store. She attended Carleton College briefly, then moved to Chicago to begin a career in journalism.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |date=August 14, 1926 |title=Theodora Bean Dies; Noted News Woman |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2fWHocjcRygC&dq=%22Theodora+Bean%22+Anoka&pg=RA12-PA40 |journal=Editor & Publisher |volume=59 |pages=40}}</ref> ==Career==
=== Journalism === Bean was a reporter at the ''Chicago Daily News'', and in that job interviewed Carrie Nation and covered women's clubs and sports.<ref name=":3" /> She moved to New York City, and was Sunday editor for the ''Morning Telegraph''; she also worked for the ''Evening Telegram''. She profiled British singer Clara Butt in 1913,<ref name=":2">{{Cite news |last=Bean |first=Theodora |date=1913-02-02 |title=Too Tall for Opera—Butt! |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-buffalo-sunday-morning-news-too-tall/147558587/ |access-date=2024-05-17 |work=The Buffalo Sunday Morning News |pages=15 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> and interviewed artist Beatrice Wood in 1917.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Naumann |first=Francis |date=1979-02-01 |title=The Big Show: The First Exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists, Part I |url=https://www.artforum.com/features/the-big-show-the-first-exhibition-of-the-society-of-independent-artists-part-i-212382/ |access-date=2024-05-17 |website=Artforum |language=en-US}}</ref> She was a founding member of the Newspaper Women's Club of New York in 1922,<ref>{{Cite news |date=April 10, 1922 |title=Newspaper Women Club Installs First Officers |url=https://www.newspaperarchive.com/other-articles-clipping-apr-10-1922-4473043/ |work=New York Tribune |pages=31 |via=NewspaperArchive.com}}</ref> and was president of the Club at the time of her death.<ref name=":0" /> She mentored Louella Parsons in the details of newspaper work.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Parsons |first=Louella O. |url=http://archive.org/details/gayilliterate0000unse |title=The Gay Illiterate |date=1944 |others=Internet Archive |pages=48}}</ref> In 1925 she began the T-Bean Syndicate,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Couch |first=Hilda J. |date=November 1925 |title=Feminine Fleet Streeters |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s8POAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22Theodora+Bean%22&pg=RA1-PA50 |journal=The Smith Alumnae Quarterly |volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=51}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |date=July 10, 1926 |title=Women in Advertising and Journalism |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_editor-publisher_1926-07-10_59_7/page/38/mode/2up?q=%22Theodora+Bean%22 |journal=Editor and Publisher |volume=59 |issue=7 |pages=38 |via=Internet Archive}}</ref> and recruited many fellow journalists to contribute, including Martha Coman, Benjamin De Casseres, Alice Rohe, and Delight Evans;<ref>{{Cite journal |date=May 23, 1925 |title=The Syndicate Man |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s825VqpuZDgC&dq=%22Theodora+Bean%22&pg=RA11-PA23 |journal=Fourth Estate |volume=32 |pages=23}}</ref> her death in 1926 ended that venture.<ref name=":1" />
=== Suffrage and other work === Bean marched in a unit with other women writers, including Mary Hunter Austin, Grace Gallatin Seton Thompson, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Katherine Leckie and Kate Jordan, in a 1911 suffrage parade,<ref>{{Cite news |date=1911-05-07 |title=3,000 Women in March for Votes |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-sun-3000-women-in-march-for-votes/147559757/ |access-date=2024-05-17 |work=The Sun |pages=7 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> and she interviewed Carrie Chapman Catt for the ''Morning Telegraph'' in 1912.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Theodora Bean Interview: "Carrie Chapman Catt: The Greatest Woman in Suffrage and the Greatest Story Written About Her" |url=http://suffrageandthemedia.org/source/theodora-bean-interview-carrie-chapman-catt-the-greatest-woman-in-suffrage-and-the-greatest-story-written-about-her/ |access-date=2024-05-17 |website=Women's Suffrage and the Media |language=en-US}}</ref> In 1915, she and others (including Fola La Follette and Alice Duer Miller) wore sandwich boards featuring suffrage arguments on the New York subway, to counter anti-suffrage advertising posters on the cars.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1915-10-31 |title=Suffragists Who Go as Living Advertisements in Subway Find Men Give Them Their Seats |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-sun-suffragists-who-go-as-living-adv/147560808/ |access-date=2024-05-17 |work=The Sun |pages=8 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> She appeared as herself in a silent film, ''Our Mutual Girl'' ''No. 22'' (1914); Arthur Conan Doyle also made a cameo in that film.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1914-11-13 |title=Our Mutual Girl No. 22 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-la-belle-star-our-mutual-girl-no-22/147561537/ |access-date=2024-05-17 |work=The La Belle Star |pages=10 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Our Mutual Girl |url=https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/Our_Mutual_Girl |access-date=2024-05-17 |website=The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia}}</ref>
== Publications ==
* "Bearding the Governor" (''Harper's Weekly,'' 1908)<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bean |first=Theodora |date=March 14, 1908 |title=Bearding the Governor: A Sidelight on an Epoch-Making Event |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_harpers-weekly_1908-03-14_52_2673/page/n19/mode/2up?q=%22Theodora+Bean%22 |journal=Harper's Weekly |volume=52 |issue=2673 |pages=20–21 |via=Internet Archive}}</ref> * "Classic Grecian Knot the Latest Coiffure for Newport Belles and Other Fashion Leaders of 1908" (1908)<ref>{{Cite news |last=Bean |first=Theodora |date=1908-07-12 |title=Classic Grecian Knot the Latest Coiffure for Newport Belles and Other Fashion Leaders of 1908 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-brooklyn-citizen-classic-grecian-kno/147576171/ |access-date=2024-05-17 |work=The Brooklyn Citizen |pages=19 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> * "Hobble skirt's Doom Foreseen; Be Patient, Ye Critical Men" (1911)<ref>{{Cite news |last=Bean |first=Theodora |date=June 15, 1911 |title=Hobble Skirt's Doom Forseen; Be Patient, Ye Critical Men |url=https://archive.org/details/fort-wayne-sentinel-1911-06-05/page/n5/mode/2up?q=%22Theodora+Bean%22 |work=Fort Wayne Sentinel |pages=6 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> * "The Decline of Courtesy" (1912)<ref>{{Cite news |last=Bean |first=Theodora |date=1912-09-22 |title=The Decline of Courtesy |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/san-francisco-chronicle-the-decline-of-c/147564577/ |access-date=2024-05-17 |work=San Francisco Chronicle |pages= |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> * "The Field, the Salon, and Politics; A Fact Story of a Remarkable Woman" (1912, profile of Anne de Rochechouart de Mortemart)<ref>{{Cite news |last=Bean |first=Theodora |date=1912-09-29 |title=The Field, the Salon, and Politics; A Fact Story of a Remarkable Woman |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/san-francisco-chronicle-the-field-the-s/147577038/ |access-date=2024-05-17 |work=San Francisco Chronicle |pages=[Blank] |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> * "Anna Case's Own Story; From Church Choir to Grand Opera" (1912)<ref>{{Cite news |last=Bean |first=Theodora |date=1912-12-22 |title=Anna Case's Own Story; From Church Choir to Grand Opera |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/san-francisco-chronicle-anna-cases-own/147576372/ |access-date=2024-05-17 |work=San Francisco Chronicle |pages=[Blank] |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> * "Too Tall for Opera—Butt!" (1913)<ref name=":2" /> * "Do Motherhood and Art Agree?" (1913, a profile of Louise Homer)<ref>{{Cite news |last=Bean |first=Theodora |date=1913-02-16 |title=Do Motherhood and Art Agree? |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-buffalo-sunday-morning-news-do-mothe/147576599/ |access-date=2024-05-17 |work=The Buffalo Sunday Morning News |pages=16 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> * "'Women! Go to Work! Commands Alda Gatti" (1913)<ref>{{Cite news |last=Bean |first=Theodora |date=1913-01-19 |title='Women! Go to Work! Commands Alda Gatti |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/wisconsin-state-journal-women-go-to-wo/147576783/ |access-date=2024-05-17 |work=Wisconsin State Journal |pages=26 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref>
==Personal life== "She was handsome, imperious, and abhorred sentiment," Ishbel Ross recalled of Bean in 1936. "She smoked cigars, carried a walking stick, and had a passion for detective stories."<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Ross |first=Ishbel |url=http://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.76677 |title=Ladies Of The Press |date=1936 |pages=258–259}}</ref> Bean lived with writer and actress Marjorie Patterson.<ref>[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1926/08/10/98386479.html?pageNumber=21 "Theodora Bean's Funeral"] ''The New York Times'' (August 10, 1926): 21.</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=IUnZAAAAMAAJ&dq=Marjorie+Patterson+Theodora+Bean&pg=RA4-PA29 "Mrs. Pep's Diary"] ''Life'' 85(January 29, 1925): 29.</ref> Bean died in 1926, at the age of 55, after a surgery.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Theodora Bean, Writer, is Dead; Was President of Newspaper Women's Club and Head of a Syndicate|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1926/08/06/109557191.html |access-date=2024-05-17 |date=August 6, 1926|page=15 |via=TimesMachine |work=The New York Times |language=en |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> On the occasion, Nellie Revell wrote in ''Variety'', "It is a loss that has descended with crushing force upon me and all her other personal friends."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Revell |first=Nellie |date=August 11, 1926 |title=Right Off the Desk |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_variety_1926-08-11_84_4/page/52/mode/2up?q=%22Theodora+Bean%22 |journal=Variety |volume=84 |issue=4 |pages=52 |via=Internet Archive}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
{{Authority control}}{{Presidents of the Newswomen's Club of New York}}{{DEFAULTSORT:Bean, Theodora}} Category:1871 births Category:1926 deaths Category:People from Anoka, Minnesota Category:American journalists Category:Suffragists from New York (state)