Elsie Robinson

Listen, World! is the first biography of American writer Elsie Robinson, a trailblazer who came from nothing to become the most-read woman columnist in the country

Highlights

1915 Before Elsie Robinson became the most-read woman in America and the highest-paid woman writer in the William Randolph Hearst media empire, she worked in a California gold mine, the only woman in a crusty group of male prospectors. This photo was taken at Princeton Mine about 20 miles away.
1915-1918 For three years, Robinson risked her life 600 feet underground. A single mother at the time, she needed a way to support herself and her chronically ill son. Hornitos, CA in 1917, during the period Robinson and her son lived there.
1915-1918 One of the most successful mining bosses in the region was Moses Rodgers, who was born a slave in Missouri. Robinson developed a deep friendship with his daughter, Luola, and their friendship changed Robinson’s life.
1915-1918 Luola Rodgers gave Robinson her first typewriter, likely this one, discovered by authors Allison Gilbert and Julia Scheeres during a research trip to Hornitos. Robinson honed her skills as a writer at night, using a kerosene can for a chair, a packing box for a table, and typing by candlelight.
1918 Robinson was hired by the Oakland Tribune to write and illustrate children’s stories. Within just a few months, the paper’s top editors saw her popularity soar. Robinson was soon given an entire eight-page section of the Sunday paper.
1919 Robinson’s fame skyrocketed and “Aunt Elsie” became a phenomenon. Parades were held and floats were made. Children joined Aunt Elsie clubs by the thousands.
1920 The Oakland Tribune began hosting parties for Aunt Elsie Club members at the Fox-Oakland, Oakland Orpheum, American, and Auditorium Theaters. As many as 3,000 children attended one such event and police were on hand to handle the crowd. This photo appeared in the Oakland Tribune on January 25, 1920.
1921 Robinson made the transition from children’s writer to newspaper columnist by illustrating her pieces, breaking into the still-to-this-day male-dominated field of political and editorial cartooning, bringing attention to previously overlooked subjects.
1922 Robinson tackled gender inequality more than a decade before Gloria Steinem was born: “I’m tired of hearing the differences of men and women emphasized and exploited, she wrote in April 1922. “It has built a wicked wall between the sexes and it’s time we knocked it down.”
1924-1956 William Randolph Hearst hired Robinson and she became the most-read woman writer in America and the highest-paid woman writer in the Hearst organization. Over the decades she denounced sexism, called out racism, and condemned violence against people of color.
1934 Robinson published her memoir, I Wanted Out!, serialized in Cosmopolitan magazine over the course of seven issues. The Washington Post called it “brutally frank” and an “exhilarating potion.”
1956 News of her death ran in newspapers across the country, covered by the New York Times, Time magazine, and the Associated Press.

Audience

Elsie Robinson published at a breakneck pace: up to six days a week for more than 40 years, resulting in approximately 9,000 stories. At the height of her career, she had an audience of more than 20 million readers.

Brand

Robinson’s first columns would endure for generations, written by alternates. One column she wrote, “Cry on Geraldine’s Shoulder,” was published until 1961. The “Aunt Elsie” brand ran until 1970, 14 years after her death.

Legacy

Beyond her stunning career writing “Listen, World!,” Robinson made history as one of the first and only columnists in the country (male or female) to draw her own editorial and political cartoons, a feat that is still rare today.

From her 1921 debut as a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist, Robinson made history by being one of the first and only writers in the country (male or female) to illustrate her own editorial cartoons. This one published on May 22, 1926.

Although Robinson bristled at the word “feminist,” she was a lifelong champion of women’s rights and an indefatigable advocate for equality, as reflected in this March 8, 1926, editorial cartoon. Advocates for gender equality at the time frequently used inaccurate comparisons to slavery. In the accompanying article, she wrote, “The place to find the actual standing of the old fashioned home is not in the poetry books, but in the law books of a nation.”

Even before landing at Hearst, Robinson pushed readers to rethink their points of view. “Mothering means something greater than the manufacturing of good soup,” she wrote in 1923.

This cartoon was originally published on April 17, 1922.

This cartoon was originally published on March 12, 1925.

This cartoon was originally published on February 8, 1921.

Robinson’s illustrations continue to be provocative. This illustration ran alongside a piece she wrote blasting capital punishment on September 10, 1925. Three convicts had just been hanged for killing a police officer. Now these young men “are a rotting crop,” she wrote. “Ploughed under by the cruel blade of hate and ignorance.”

In her landmark book, Ladies of the Press, author Ishbel Ross described Robinson and her writing this way: “She is whole-hearted, original, intense. She deals in short words, short paragraphs, a punch in every line.” On October 21, 1926, Robinson examined the place of religion in schools.

This cartoon was originally published on July 24, 1928.

Read how co-author Allison Gilbert discovered Robinson’s story here.

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