Lorena A. Hickok
Lorena A. Hickok was an influential American journalist born in 1893 in East Troy, Wisconsin. Her early life was marked by instability and violence, which led her to leave home at the age of fourteen and work as a maid. Despite these challenges, she completed high school and briefly attended Lawrence College before pursuing a career in journalism. Hickok started her career at the Battle Creek Evening News and later became the society editor for the Milwaukee Sentinel, where she sought more substantive reporting roles. She gained recognition for her interviewing skills and transitioned to the Minneapolis Tribune, eventually working for the Associated Press (AP) in 1928.
During her time at the AP, Hickok developed a close friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt, which influenced her career path. In 1933, she left the AP to focus on investigating the conditions of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, traveling extensively to report on the impacts of New Deal policies across the country. Later in life, she retired to Hyde Park, where she collaborated with Roosevelt on several writing projects until her death in 1968. Hickok's legacy as a pioneering woman in journalism and her contributions to social issues remain significant.
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Subject Terms
Lorena A. Hickok
Journalist
- Born: March 7, 1893
- Birthplace: East Troy, Wisconsin
- Died: May 1, 1968
- Place of death: Rhinebeck, New York
Biography
Lorena Hickok was born in East Troy, Wisconsin, in 1893. Unfortunately, violence and instability characterized her early life. Hickok’s father routinely beat her and her sisters. He had trouble keeping jobs, and constantly forced the family to move. This wreaked havoc on Hickok’s academic life as she traveled from one school district to the next. At the age of fourteen, she left home and worked as a maid, living with nine families in two years.
Eventually, Hickok’s mother’s cousin, Ella Ellis, took her in. Under Ellis’s guidance, Hickok finished high school in 1912, and then enrolled in Lawrence College in Appleton, Wisconsin. Sadly, Hickok never fully adjusted to college, and she flunked out after one year. The Battle Creek Evening News then hired her to cover train arrivals and departures and to write personal-interest stories. They paid her seven dollars a week. Wishing to follow in the footsteps of her role model, Edna Ferber, Hickok got a job at the Milwaukee Sentinel as its society editor. Hickok quickly became bored with the society assignments, and convinced her editor to assign her to the city desk, where her reputation as a skilled interviewer quickly rose.
In 1917, Hickok transferred to the Minneapolis Tribune, and from there had a brief stint in New York City, with hopes of covering World War I. Hickok was fired from her New York job after a month, and returned to the Tribune, where she tried to enroll at the University of Minnesota. Her college career ended again after trouble with the dean, who tried to force her to live in a women’s dorm.
Recognizing her natural writing talent, the Tribune’s managing editor, Thomas Dillon, tutored Hickok, and gave her assignments no other woman could get at that time. She was hired by the Associated Press (AP) in 1928. During her career as an AP reporter, Hickok became close friends with Eleanor Roosevelt, and the two talked often. In 1933, Hickok left the AP, because she knew she could no longer be objective when writing stories about the Roosevelts. She then got a job investigating the conditions of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. In the next two years, Hickok visited thirty-two states, providing detailed reports on New Deal policies, and how they affected the average American.
Hickok’s diabetes worsened in the mid-1950’s, and she retired to Hyde Park to write with Eleanor Roosevelt. The two wrote several books until Hickok’s death in 1968.