The Huntress: The Adventures, Escapades, and Triumphs of Alicia Patterson [Audiobook]

The fascinating biography of the maverick newspaperwoman and intrepid adventurer, which follows her exceptional exploits through the first half of the 20th century, from her troublemaking days as the middle child of complicated parents to her successes as publisher of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Newsday.

The authors take us into the lost WASP world of Alicia Patterson: her larger-than-life father - scion of the Patterson-Medill Chicago publishing dynasty - and her traditional mother, her childhood of foreign caretakers, travel, and boarding schools. Married off at 23 to a friend of her father's, Alicia spent little time at home during the brief marriage, instead earned a transport pilot's license (only the 10th woman in the country to do so), hunted big game in Indochina and India, and began to write for her father's newspaper, The Daily News. Her second father-orchestrated marriage failed, but her last, to someone of her own choosing, Harry Guggenheim, resulted in the founding of Newsday in 1940. As she guided the paper through investigative exposés and international and liberal political coverage, her influence on the national stage grew along with the newspaper's reputation and circulation: winning a Pulitzer in 1954 and putting her on the cover of Time. Over the years, admirers ranged from the Maharajah of Baroda to Adlai Stevenson. Here is the story of the spirited and formidable young woman who became a preeminent figure of the golden era of print newspapers.