Free Eyes on the Street: The Life of Jane Jacobs by Robert Kanigel Page B

She hadn’t. Both were real women’s clubs of the era, offshoots of men’s fraternal organizations. On a page dappled with photos ofrecent and future brides, readers learned that a baritone had been signed to sing in a musicale for the Lackawanna chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star. A week devoted to “The American Girl” had concluded at the Masonic Temple with a show depicting the seven ages in the life of a girl, based on Shakespeare’s seven ages of man.
    Some women’s-page reporting got more room to breathe, as in a story appearing under this headline:
MOONLIGHT PICNIC
AT SCRANTON HOME
PROVES BIG SUCCESS
HUNDREDS OF REPUBLIC MEN
AND WOMEN ARE PRESENT
AT AFFAIR
    The event had taken place on the “spacious grounds at ‘Marworth,’ the country estate of Mrs. Worthington Scranton,” sponsored by the Lackawanna council of the Federal Republic Women—and, of course, was successful beyond expectation. There was a picnic, music, fortune-telling, booths devoted to national cuisines, and, “although there were plenty of candidates on the grounds,” a happy absence of speech making. Meanwhile, “the weatherman provided the moonlight on schedule.”
    The paper rarely carried bylines, so we can’t know whether this or any other Republican story was Jane’s. For the most part, her time there is shrouded in legend—some of her own making. For example, she was known to make up recipes, like one for Normandy apple cake that couldn’t possibly come out right; by one family member’s account, Jane called for half a cup of baking powder instead of half a teaspoon. “It was preposterous and caused a huge outcry.” Of course, she goes on, “Jane had never cooked anything.” Jane’s work sometimes took her off the women’s pages, too. She covered civic meetings, and wrote film, book, and theater reviews. But it didn’t matter, really; you learn the rudiments of journalism whatever your subject. Suddenly, facts count, spelling counts. Mrs. Worthington Scranton’s bash had taken place just hours before the paper went to press for the morning edition: deadlines count.
    One time, asked to revitalize the letters-to-the-editor section, Jane took to writing letters herself, on politics and local affairs. When her first efforts failed to prime the pump, she implored her father, “Whatin the world am I going to do?” He suggested she write a letter against dogs—that ought to rile up readers. She did, and it did. The section began generating interest. Jane never had to write another phony letter again.
    How did she land the job in the first place? The way she told it later, the editor needed a reporter but had no money to hire one. “I canwork for you for nothing,” said Jane. The editor was taken aback, but agreed: “We can see how it works out, whether we like it and whether you like it.” Later, on job applications, Jane would record her pay as$18 a week; it was just—and this was not uncommon during the Depression—that she never actually got it. Though the paper was unionized, Jane recalled, “nobody objected to my…make-do barter agreement.” The paper assigned one of its reporters “to look after me andbe my mentor. I wrote things and they put them in the paper. And I got a big bang out of that.” The Republican , she’d say at another time, was “my‘journalism school,’ and I think it was a good one.”
    During her time at the paper, she’d often sleep late, work into the evening, then drop by tosee her father, who kept evening hours during much of the Depression. Around 1930, he had moved from his old office in the Dime Savings Bank building downtown to new ones, designed to his specifications, in the newMedical Arts Building, a brick- and stone-faced building fronting on Washington Avenue across the street from the Republican. The elevator operator would take Jane up to the ninth floor. Suite 909, at the end of a tiled stretch of corridor, had a long, skinny waiting room, Dr. Butzner’s