The outspoken conservative American journalist Dorothy Thompson (1894-1961) was one of the earliest women in her field. Her commentaries reached a very large audience in print and radio from the 1930s through the 1950s.

Dorothy Thompson was born in Lancaster, New York, on July 9, 1894. When she was ten her mother died, and she correctly predicted that her father, a Methodist minister, would marry Eliza Abbott, the church organist. When she rebelled against her stepmother, her father, whom she adored, required her to memorize and recite Bible passages as punishment. His critiques of her recitations undoubtedly contributed to her future speaking effectiveness.

Thompson eventually went to live with an aunt in Chicago to resolve the conflict with her stepmother. There she attended high school and Lewis Institute where she was quite popular and captain of a basketball team, but hardly a brilliant scholar. She entered Syracuse University in 1910, worked...