Maurine Beasley Would Not Be Dissuaded from Studying First Ladies
Eleanor Roosevelt scholar awarded FLARE 2026 Lewis L. Gould Award.
It’s a familiar story. At least it is for the few women in the late 20th century who pursued scholarship of the understudied American first ladies.
Maurine Beasley was one of them.
As a first woman (or for many years a token woman) journalism professor at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland in College Park, Beasley recalls being advised by a former dean of another journalism school to stop wasting her time studying first ladies if she wanted tenure.
She didn’t take the shortsighted advice.
Earlier this week and more than 40 years later, Beasley was honored for her pathbreaking work studying first ladies when she was awarded the First Ladies Association for Research and Education’s 2026 Lewis L. Gould Award.
