Teenage woman reporter exposes wrongdoing in the 1930s

In this 1935 photo, Ann Battle poses on a desk in the Society Department of The Mobile Press Register, then located on St. Louis Street. She described the dress as a "Paris model...gray with a pink collar." She said "I thought I was a knock-out," as indeed she was.

I have never met a more delightful or sweeter person than Ann Battle Hawkins. Over many visits in her home and in letters and phone conversations she shared stories with me about the time she spent at The Mobile Press Register in the 1930s.

The former Convent of Mercy building.

In 1931, a then 18-year-old Ann Battle, freshly graduated from the Convent of Mercy school and equipped with typing skills from a six-week course, joined the mostly youthful staff of the newspaper. Alfred Battle Bealle, Ann’s cousin and associate editor of The Birmingham News, recommended her to Society Editor Frances Ruffin Durham, who was looking for someone to write a gossip column at the Press.

Ann told me her work on the Press Register sometimes shocked her mother’s sense of proper behavior for a young woman.

During the Great Depression, a woman who lived on Old Shell Road ran a “placement agency” in which she charged a fee to find work for unemployed women. The newspaper suspected a fraud, but had no way of knowing for sure.

So the paper’s editors asked Ann to pose as a woman looking for a job. The editors had her dress in her most worn clothes, gave her an old purse and some money. They drove her to within two blocks of the woman’s house and walked from there. Ann paid a fee to the agency, but never received a call about a job.

As a result, the newspaper was able to show how unemployed women were being cheated out of their money by the agency.

Although just a small town story (Mobile had a population of about 68,000 in the 1930s), it was in the expose tradition of Nellie Bly at Pulitzer's New York World.

Do you have a story about people at The Mobile Press Register or a photo that you would like to share? If so, please contact me. I would be pleased to share them on Newspapering.