Talented Press Register reporters draw national attention to Mobile waterfront

In a nationwide writing contest in 1933, two Mobile Press Register reporters took two of the top three prizes. That was an interesting result for a contest that drew entries from around the country.

United Artists Corporation sponsored the “I Cover the Waterfront” contest to publicize the release of its feature film by the same name. The movie starred Claudette Colbert and Ben Lyon in a story about an investigative reporter who romances a suspected smuggler's daughter. The studio opened the contest to all ship news and waterfront reporters.

Frances R. Durham won a second-place cash prize of $150 (about $3,000 in today’s dollars) for her feature story, “the Black Pirogue,” the tale of a man swept overboard. She wrote the prize winning story under the nom de plume Francis Gildart.

Durham was the Press Register society editor at the time of the contest, but earlier had covered the waterfront for the Mobile paper and several upstate Alabama papers. She covered the West Indian Hurricane, also known as the Great Miami Hurricane, of 1926. She also wrote the story of Cudjo Lewis, one of the last known survivors of the Atlantic slave trade between Africa and the United States. Lewis, together with 115 other African captives, was brought to the United States on board the ship Clotilda in 1860.

Charles Leanman, who covered the Mobile waterfront for the Press Register, won a third-place prize of $25 (about $500 today) for a story about a frustrated romance along the waterfront during the Spanish-American War.

Francis Kester of the Oakland Tribune in California won the first-prize of $250 (about $5,000 today) for his graphic story, “The Wreck of the Hanalei,” a 1914 marine disaster off Bolinas Head, California.

Judges selected the winners based on human interest, novelty of theme, and style. Each article had to be based on actual events and had to be part of the reporters personal experiences, either as a participant or observer.

The judges were Louis Wiley of the New York Times, Stanley Walker of the New York Herald-Tribune, and Paul Block, publisher of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Toledo Blade. The judges picked 10 winners from the entries around the county.

Sources

“Two of Press Register Staff Winners in National Contest,” Mobile Register, July 24, 1933 A, 5:3

“Francis Kester Wins Prize for Sea Story,” New York Times, July 25, 1933 Books, 22:4

Boston Herald, May 17, 1933 16:6