Heywood Campbell Broun, newspaper columnist, author, and one of the founders of the American Newspaper Guild, was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1888. After attending Harvard, he worked for several New York papers including the New York
Tribune and New York
World and the New York
Telegram and
World Telegram. While at the
World, he began a syndicated column, "It Seems to Me," which he wrote until his death. In his column, the first of its kind to disagree with the policies of the newspapers that carried it, Broun championed the underdog, criticized social injustice, and supported labor unions--all issues of intense concern to ER. He also publicly backed ER's efforts to retain her own identity after becoming first lady, writing that "she has a right to her own individual career regardless of the prominence of her husband."
In addition to his journalistic and literary endeavors (he wrote several books and edited a literary weekly), Broun was also active in politics. In 1930, he unsuccessfully ran for Congress as a Socialist. He also served as the first president of the Newspaper Guild from 1933 until his death in 1939.
Sources:
The Concise Dictionary of American Biography, 5th ed. Garden City, N.Y.: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1997, 146-147.
Lash, Joseph. World of Love: Eleanor Roosevelt and Her Friends, 1943-1962. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1984, 131.
