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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8.2011 THE T1MES-PICAYUNE A-7
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1837
1850-	.	1860
1873	1880	1890	1900	1910	1920	1930	1940	1950	I960	1970
1980	1990
2000
2012
ELIZA POITEVENT HOLBROOK NICHOLSON WAS A TRAILBLAZING JOURNALIST who
became the first woman to own and manage a metropolitian newspaper when she took over The Daily Picayune in 1876. Born in Mississippi, Poitevent, who wrote poetry under the nom de plume ?Pearl Rivers,? was a barely 4-foot-tall dynamo who inherited the Daily Picayune from her husband, whom she had married just two years earlier. Her 20-year tenure was marked by growth and innovation.
PS WORLD: Alva Holbrook, who was an early investor in The Picayune and owned it outright by 1867, was introduced to 27-year-old poet Eliza Poitevent in 1870 and promptly hired her as literary editor. Tim years later they were married, he 35 years her senior. At the time, Holbrook had just reacquired the paper after severed years of turmoil. When fie died, he owed the previous owne rs $80,000, with dim prospects his 'widow could earn it back. After three months of hesitation sfie decided to give it a go. Her name first appeared on the masthead on March 27,1876.
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- A few months later, the longtime business manager George Nicholson bought in, and then she married him-. They jointly ran the \ l paper until they died of influenza in 1896.
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THE BOSS: Poitevent wan born in 18^3, but like many Southern women of the dan/, she lied about her age, and all official newxpa/per accounts list her birth as 184-9-Unlike women of her day, especially in the Souths, she was determined to tuive a literary career and proved to be a tough-minded manager when the time came. After meeting with the staff in March 1876 to tell them the paper would, continue and she would be in change, a few of the ?men grumbled She fired th&m. In later years, she struck a 'progressive tone for The Daily Picayune, supporting improved public education, separate but equal, and institutions for the indigent and the insane.
TRENDSETTER:
Poitevent foresaw many of the trends in 20th-century newspapers. She insisted the writing be clear, direct and short She wanted popular a/ppeal, and began running a
daily weather forecast featuring ?Vie Weather Prophet ? The Picayune Frog grew into one of her popular marketing tools. She pwt'sued women waders and hired Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer, RIGHT, who began an advice column under the name ?Dorothy Dix Talks. ?
The column later became syndicated and wan read by 60 million people.
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