Early at the Empire State Building, New York City, undated, box 14, folder 23, Eleanor Early papers (MS1995-005), John J. Burns Library, Boston College.

Eleanor Early was born April 27, 1895 in Newton, Massachusetts. She grew up in Wellesley and attended Miss Wheelock’s School (later named Wheelock College) in Boston, where she was in a program for kindergarten teachers, and graduated in 1917. But she preferred to be a reporter, and started working for Boston newspapers, first as a “cub” reporter, and then a feature writer. In the mid and late 1920s, she was a freelance writer for the International News Service. Also at this time, she tried her hand at writing fiction, serialized in newspapers, and later published as books.

While covering the Boston Braves spring training in Saint Petersburg, Florida, she received so many questions about Boston that she decided to write about the city, leading to her first travel book, And This is Boston! It was followed by several more, the last being Washington Holiday. She also lived and wrote in Washington, DC, and for many years lived in New York City, in an apartment overlooking Central Park. She lived in Dominica and other islands of the West Indies during the period in the 1930’s when she wrote Ports of the Sun and Lands of Delight.

During World War II she wrote a series of articles for the King Features Syndicate on “Girls in Washington.” These informed the many hundreds of women who had come to Washington to work for the government. At that time she also had a radio program from Washington, DC, advising women on events and how to get along in wartime Washington.

In the later 1950’s and 1960’s, until her death in Boston on August 25, 1969, she wrote numerous articles for newspapers and magazines. She was a founding member of the Society of American Travel Writers.

Content Warning: This exhibit and the archival records it is drawn from depict racist imagery and cultural stereotypes, using the dated language of those who created the material. These words, images, and attitudes are not acceptable, but we believe it is important to preserve the past so that we can learn from it. We are aware that materials in our collections may be objectionable and offensive, and had we curated this exhibit from scratch, we may have done it differently. We are actively working to improve the language we use, highlight hidden voices, and contextualize materials; however, there is much work to do, and we hold ourselves accountable to doing the work.