Nellie McAleney Revell

Nellie McAleney Revell was born in 1873 in a small town called Riverton, which was located closely to Springfield, Illinois. She showed interest in journalism at a young age, being the daughter of an editor and publisher of The Springfield Republican. She started to work seriously as a journalist at the age of sixteen.
In her era women were not encouraged to work outside the home. However, Revell had worked for a number of different newspapers and jobs and seemed to perform well in all of them. She worked for the Denver Post, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The San Francisco Chronicle, The New York World, The New York Evening Herald, and The Chicago Times at some point in her life. Eventually, she was able to work for her father's newspaper, The Springfield Republican, but she worked on many rival newspapers prior in order to prove herself as a reporter to her father.
Revell covered hard news, like police, courts, and theater. Some of her firsts included, being the first woman press agent. She also, was the first woman to cover a professional prizefight, a fight between professional boxers for money, between James J. Corbett and Bob Fitzsimmons. She covered this while working at The World. She also covered the coronation of Czar Nicholas II and the funeral of Queen Victoria.
She fought her bosses who would put her pieces in what at the time were called "women's pages," and eventually quit due to the lack of appreciation from her editors. The World and The New York Evening Herald both wanted to post her stories in the women's pages so she resigned and became a press agent.
She married a many by the name of Charles Smith throughout the course of her life, and when he passed away in the 1900s she later remarried to Chicago businessman, Joe Revell. They had twin daughters.
The year 1919 was a bad year for Revell. She lost her life savings in a bad investment, and she was confined to a hospital bed, put in a cast and brace because of serious spinal issue due to back problems. She was eventually able to walk again, and wrote three inspirational books.
In 1930, she was hired by NBC to conduct a radio interview show, "Neighbor Nell", with celebrities, athletes, and politicians. She died at the age of 68 in 1958.

Cain, Diana. "Tag Archive." Dames of Dialogue. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2013. <http://damesofdialogue.wordpress.com/tag/nellie-revell/>.

Ritchie, Donald A. American Journalists: Getting the Story. New York: Oxford UP, 1997. Print.She