Public decides which news has value

Society Department. From left, Helen DuBois Johnson, Amalia Stevens Burns, Alice Lesesne Beville
and Ann Battle. Note the one telephone for the office and the very clean desk tops.
Of course, there were no personal computers in the 1930s.

Although Mobile, Alabama, had a population of about 70,000 in the 1930s, it was still a small town in many ways. The Society Department at The Mobile Press Register reflected the slower Southern lifestyle of the Port City.

When 18-year-old Ann Battle joined newspaper in 1935, her first job in the Society Department was to write the gossip column “Polly Puts the Kettle On.” The column concerned weddings, club meetings and parties.

She worked for the Society Department only in the afternoons. In the mornings, she covered the Chamber of Commerce and trials in federal court. On Saturday afternoons, Battle had to be at the paper to read proof sheets, check the spelling of names and making sure the Sunday pages went together correctly.

In the Society Department, Battle had to contend with the legendary Chandler sisters, Miss Nettie and Miss Mary.

The sisters, who were no relation to Press Register publisher Ralph Chandler, had worked on the Register for many years covering society news. When the Press and Register merged in 1932, they were not picked up by the new paper and went to work for The Mobile Times, a short-lived daily, for a few years before joining the Press Register.

Miss Nettie, being 10 years older than her sister, dominated the relationship. Miss Mary dismissed herself as “just a period after Miss Nettie’s name.”

On the Register, Miss Nettie had begun the popular “Betty Letters,” letters from the fictitious Betty Bienville lavishly chronicling the goings on of Mobile society. She continued the feature at the Press Register.

But Miss Nettie couldn’t type and wrote the letters in longhand, which the composing room staff refused to take. So Miss Mary learned to type, with two fingers laboriously, while Miss Nettie dictated.

Many male journalists derided such work then, just as some historians do today. But the women of the Society Department produced news that people were willing to pay to read. The public, as always, decided which news had value.