Welcome in, everyone. It is it's really great
to have you with us for today's deep dive. Absolutely.
So glad you're here. Yeah. If you are joining
us for the first time or if you are a longtime
listener, we are just thrilled you decided to
spend some time with us today. We have a truly
fascinating journey ahead. We really do. We are
looking at a Wikipedia article that serves as
our source material for this one. And it details
the life and career of a woman named Ruby A.
Saunders. Now, if you are sitting there thinking.
That name doesn't immediately ring a bell for
you. Don't worry. Right. That is exactly why
we were here. Exactly. The mission of this deep
dive is to really bring this remarkable story
to light. We are going to explore the life of
a woman who quietly but profoundly shaped youth
culture and broke major representation barriers
in 20th century publishing. She really did. She
is one of those essential hidden in plain sight
figures. Her work rippled out into the wider
world in ways that. frankly are still being felt
today even if her name isn't on the tip of everyone's
tongue and to really get us in the right headspace
for this i mean i have to point out the incredible
visual you've got going on today oh you noticed
the background i did Your backdrop has completely
shifted. You've transformed your space into this
amazing mid -century publishing office. We tried
to set the mood a bit. It's perfect. I'm seeing
stacks of vintage teen magazines, dog -eared
mass -market romance novels scattered on the
desk, a classic heavy metal typewriter. It is
the perfect mood for the conversation we are
about to have. Thank you. I was going for that
authentic feel. It really makes you feel like
you've just stepped off an elevator and into
a bustling editorial bullpen in the heart of
Manhattan in the 1950s. Yeah. Like the air practically
smells like ink and coffee. Okay, let's unpack
this. Where does the story of Ruby Saunders actually
begin? Well, the foundational facts of her early
life really set the stage perfectly for everything
that comes later. Ruby Saunders was born on January
31st, 1929, right in New York City. A true New
Yorker from the start. Exactly. And she stayed
in the city for her education, attending Hunter
College. She graduated from there in 1950 with
a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism. Wow. Getting
a journalism degree in 1950. That feels like
a significant starting line. It was a very specific
era to enter the workforce. Right. Stepping out
into the professional world at that exact moment
in history, especially in a media capital like
New York City, it must have been incredibly competitive.
Highly competitive and, frankly, highly homogenous.
But she took that degree and immediately put
it to work. She entered the publishing industry
by joining a company called Parents Magazine
Enterprises. Okay, Parents Magazine. And her
career trajectory there is, I mean, it is essentially
a masterclass in tenacity. She didn't come in
at the top. She started at the absolute ground
level as an editorial assistant. Wait, before
we go further for listeners who maybe haven't
worked in mid -century publishing, what exactly
does an editorial assistant do in that era? It's
a lot of heavy lifting. Because today, that might
mean managing emails or updating social media.
But back then, I'm picturing just a literal mountain
of paper. What exactly is a slush pile? Oh, the
infamous slush pile. That is exactly what it
is. Before digital submissions, aspiring writers
would physically mail their typed manuscripts
to a magazine. Just massive stacks of envelopes.
Right. The slush pile was the towering stack
of unsolicited submissions that arrived every
single day. The editorial assistant is the person
tasked with reading through that massive, often
terrible pile of paper to find the one diamond
in the rough. That sounds exhausting. It is notoriously
grueling work. It's managing those piles, physically
typing out memos on cargan paper, running copy
between departments. It's handling all the invisible,
exhausting logistical work that keeps a publication
running. So it is paying your dues in the most
literal manual labor sense of the word. Absolutely.
But she didn't just survive that environment.
The source material highlights how she systematically
mastered it. She rose through the ranks. She
put in the work. She did. She clearly demonstrated
a sharp editorial eye and eventually climbed
all the way up to become the managing editor
of a publication under their umbrella called
Calling All Girls Magazine. That is quite the
leap because managing editor, that's the person
actually putting the puzzle pieces of the magazine
together every month, right? Yes. The operational
core of the magazine. Making sure the trains
run on time, basically. Precisely. And she didn't
stop there. In 1963, she achieved something truly
extraordinary. She was promoted to the very top
of the masthead. She became the editor of Calling
All Girls. And just to give you a sense of her
staying power and her influence, she held on
to that top editorial role until 1979. Until
1979? Yeah, a 16 -year tenure at the helm of
a national youth magazine. 16 years is an absolute
eternity in publishing. But, you know, something
you just said makes me wonder about the timeline
here. What's that? She takes over in 1963. The
1960s were, well, they were the 1960s. The culture
completely fractured and rebuilt itself between
1963 and 1969. It was a wildly transformative
decade. How does a magazine called Calling All
Girls survive the counterculture movement and
the rapidly changing face of teenagers? By not
staying static. This is where her brilliance
really shines through. Under her leadership the
magazine evolved to keep up with that changing
era. She saw the writing on the wall. She absolutely
did. In 1966, right in the middle of that cultural
upheaval you mentioned, she rebranded calling
all girls to Young Miss. Young Miss? Yes. She
recognized that the young women reading her magazine
were maturing faster. Their interests were shifting.
A title that sounded like a 1950s sock hop just
wasn't going to resonate anymore. That makes
so much sense. She was steering this national
publication to meet young women exactly where
they were at. I really want you, the listener,
to pause for a second and picture the sheer determination
required here. It's immense. We are talking about
a woman, and specifically a black woman, navigating
the corporate publishing structure of the 1950s
and 1960s. Against massive systemic odds. Exactly.
To climb from an entry -level assistant wading
through those physical slush piles to the top
of the editorial masthead of a national youth
magazine and then successfully rebranding it
for an entirely new generation, it speaks volumes
about her talent. And her absolute mastery of
her craft. It does. And she wasn't just participating
in the industry. You know, she was directing
it, which makes the next part of her story almost
hard to believe from a time management perspective.
I was just going to say running a national magazine
for 16 years sounds like an all consuming 80
hour a week job. Oh, easily. But looking at our
notes here, she was simultaneously running a
completely separate dual career. Yes, she was.
While she was shaping the direction of Young
Miss during the day, she was constantly freelancing
as a nonfiction author. That is wild. She was
producing a monthly magazine and simultaneously
writing and publishing entire books. What kind
of books are we talking about here? Was she writing
memoirs or... I don't know, industry tell -alls
about the magazine world. Not at all. Her books
were highly practical, hands -on manuals specifically
designed for teenagers. Okay, sticking with her
core audience. Exactly. To give you an idea of
her output, she started in 1966 with the Calling
All Girls Party book. Makes sense, tying into
the magazine. Right. Then in 1972, she released
two books in one year, Babysitting, A Concise
Guide, and Good Grooming for Boys. even writing
for the boys yep she followed that with good
grooming for girls in 1976 then came quick and
easy housekeeping in 1977 and eventually the
beauty book in 1983. so she was really covering
all the bases of mid -century teen life the whole
spectrum it sounds like she viewed her magazine
work and her book writing as two different vehicles
for the exact same overarching goal which was
helping young people figure out how to be functional
confident young adults But did she stick mostly
to etiquette and parties and housekeeping? Because
it feels very domestic. That is the assumption
you might make just looking at those specific
titles. But she actually went much deeper than
that. Oh, really? Yeah. Tucked into that bibliography
is a title from 1973 called Smart Shopping and
Consumerism. Okay, that sounds a bit different.
What's fascinating here is that Saunders wasn't
just teaching teens about the traditional expected
topics like throwing a good party or making sure
their hair was neat. With smart shopping and
consumerism, she was actively trying to create
informed, savvy young citizens. That is an incredibly
modern concept for 1973. It was way ahead of
its time. The 1970s marked a massive surge in
youth consumer culture. Teenagers suddenly had
more disposable income from part -time jobs or
allowances, and corporations realized this. The
advertisers figured it out. Oh, they definitely
did. Teens were being heavily marketed to. By
writing a book on consumerism specifically for
them, she was empowering them. She was giving
them the tools to think critically about how
they spent their money. Like recognizing manipulative
advertising tactics. Exactly. And teaching them
how to advocate for themselves in the market.
place. Think about teenagers today just scrolling
TikTok or Instagram and being bombarded with
targeted ads, sponsored posts and influencer
marketing. It's relentless today. It is. And
Saunders was recognizing that exact same vulnerability
to marketing back in the 70s. She was trying
to give teens the armor to protect themselves
long before we had buzzwords like media literacy.
Precisely. It elevates her role from just giving
lifestyle advice to actively fostering financial
literacy in a young generation. She deeply She
respected her audience. She didn't talk down
to them. Never. She didn't talk down to teenagers
at all. She recognized their economic agency
and treated them like capable adults in training.
Which is such a refreshing approach. So she's
running Young Miss during the day. She's writing
practical guides on babysitting and consumerism
on the weekends. The very busy woman. Incredibly
busy. But her writing career didn't even stop
at nonfiction. She also made a major pivot into
genre fiction. She did. Here's where it gets
really interesting. In 1969, she published her
very first novel titled Marilyn Morgan, R .N.
We really need to unpack the context on this
1969 novel because it represents a significant
cultural milestone. Let's do it. The book was
published under the New American Library's Signet
Nurse Romances line. A nurse romance. I am vaguely
familiar with the concept, but for listeners
who might not know, how big of a deal was this
specific subgenre in the late 60s? It was massively
popular. Mass -market paperbacks were entirely
different from the hardcovers you'd buy at a
dedicated traditional bookstore. Right. The format
was different. These were small, inexpensive
paperbacks placed on spinning wire racks in drugstores,
supermarkets, and bus stations. Impulse buys.
Exactly. They were designed for accessibility.
And the nurse romance was an absolute staple
of these racks. Structurally, Marilyn Morgan,
R .N., followed the standard beloved trokes of
the era. Which are what, exactly? You know, the
dedicated, capable nurse navigating a fast -paced
hospital setting, usually with a handsome doctor
as a love interest. It delivered exactly the
comforting, predictable beats that fans of the
genre were looking for. Right, but looking at
the source material, the groundbreaking significance
isn't... in the plot structure itself no it wasn't
it wasn't reinventing the wheel narratively the
real significance is in who was writing it and
who it was about Exactly. Our sources highlight
that Marilyn Morgan RN was one of the very first
nurse romances to be written by a black author
and to actually feature black characters. That
is huge because when you picture the covers of
those vintage pulp romances, it is usually just
a sea of homogenous faces. It was a genre that
was overwhelmingly, almost exclusively white,
both in its authorship and its characters. And
she changed that. Ruby Saunders stepped into
that deeply established, very white space and
introduced Marilyn Morgan. She brought a black
professional woman to the center of a mainstream,
widely distributed romantic fiction line. And
clearly readers responded to her. Because this
wasn't just a one -off experiment, right? Marilyn
Morgan didn't just appear in one book. No, she
didn't. Saunders actually turned her into a recurring
character and built an entire franchise around
her. She did. After that 1969 debut, she published
Nurse Morgan's Triumph in 1970. Keeping the momentum
going. And then the following year, in 1971,
she was incredibly - prolific and gave us two
more installments. We got Marilyn Morgan, Cruise
Nurse, and Nurse Morgan Sees It Through. Two
in one year. Yeah, she created a genuine multi
-book series centered on a black heroine in the
mass market paperback space. A cruise nurse.
I love that. Taking the medical romance trope
to the high seas. It's a great premise. It really
is. But you know, it makes me wonder, sometimes
we think of quote unquote important literature.
As only being the thick, dense novels taught
in university courses. The prestige fiction.
Yeah, the prestige stuff. Why does a paperback
about a Kruisner's matter so much historically?
If we connect this to the bigger picture, the
cultural weight of what she accomplished here
is just immense. When we talk about representation
in literature, the conversation often does gravitate
toward high literature or prestige literary fiction.
Like you said. But representation in accessible
everyday genre fiction like a mass market nurse
romance you grab at the pharmacy is arguably
just as impactful, if not more so, for the average
person. Because it reaches people where they
actually are. Exactly. These were books that
everyday people picked up for pocket change to
read on the subway commute or during a lunch
break at a factory or waiting at the laundromat.
Just slipping into everyday life. By placing
a black professional at the center of a relatable,
popular genre, Saunders was doing the vital work
of normalizing diversity for a massive mainstream
audience. That is so powerful. She shifted the
cultural landscape not by writing a dense sociological
text that only academics would read. but by giving
everyday readers an engaging, entertaining romance
where the capable, beloved heroine happened to
be a black woman. It's a perfect example of how
profound change can happen from within popular
culture. You don't have to write a political
manifesto to change how people see the world.
Sometimes you just write a really good, accessible
story. Exactly. It's incredible. So we've traced
her journey through the intense world of mid
-century magazine publishing. We've seen her
prolific output of practical nonfiction for teens.
explored her barrier -breaking run in mass market
fiction. A massive career. But looking at the
timeline, her story actually takes another fascinating
turn later in her life. Let's move forward a
bit to the late 1980s. Yes, by the late 1980s,
Saunders had transitioned out of her long, demanding
career in national publishing. But she didn't
just retire quietly. That doesn't sound like
her style. Not at all. She shifted her focus
toward public service and local education. She
actually joined the school board in New Rochelle,
New York. Why the pivot from national magazines
to a local school board? On the surface, it seems
like a very different world. It is a different
venue, certainly. But the core mission is exactly
the same. How do you mean? When you look at her
whole life, it's a remarkably consistent thread.
She spent decades guiding and educating youth
through magazines and books on a national scale.
Joining the school board was simply her bringing
that exact same dedication to the youth in her
own local community. That makes perfect sense.
And knowing her track record from the magazine
world, I am guessing she didn't just sit quietly
in the back of the school board meetings either?
You would guess correctly. Just like she did
at Parents Magazine Enterprises, she led. She
eventually rose to the role of president of the
New Rochelle School Board. Of course she did.
It just speaks to her inherent leadership qualities.
Whether she was managing a slush pile in an editorial
bullpen in Manhattan, steering a magazine through
the 1960s cultural revolution, or running a school
board meeting in New Rochelle, she was someone
who took responsibility. She climbed to the top
wherever she went. And she worked to improve
the systems around her. She truly lived a life
of impact from every conceivable angle. from
the newsstand to the classroom. Our sources note
that Ruby Saunders passed away on December 20,
2001, at the age of 72. A tremendous loss. But
it's clear her story doesn't just abruptly end
there. A life lived with that much intention
leaves mark. It absolutely does. Her impact in
New Rochelle was so deeply felt that her legacy
is actively preserved today by the New Rochelle
Fund for Educational Excellence. Oh, really?
How so? They hold an annual event in her memory
called the Ruby Saunders Fall Literary Festival.
That is a beautiful tribute. It perfectly ties
together her love of literature, her... background
in publishing and her later in life commitment
to local education. It really does. And the source
material even gives us a great specific detail
about the festival. The 2012 iteration of the
event celebrated the works of Henry David Thoreau.
Wow, Thoreau. It's wonderful to know that over
a decade after her passing, her name was still
bringing the community together to celebrate
reading, learning, and the discussion of big
ideas. It really is the perfect way to remember
someone who dedicated so many thousands of words,
both in magazines and paperbacks, to guiding
others. So what does this all mean? Good question.
When you look at the entirety of the Wikipedia
article we've been using as our source, how do
we sum up the life of Ruby A. Saunders? We started
by saying she was a hidden figure. What is the
takeaway for the listener today? I think we have
to look at her through the lens of a dual legacy.
Okay, let's break that down. On one hand, she
was a pragmatic, guiding voice for an entire
generation of teenagers. Through her 16 years
as a magazine editor and her extensive nonfiction
bibliography, she helped young people navigate
the practical realities of growing up. The day
-to -day stuff. Yes. She taught them how to manage
their lives, how to care for themselves, and
crucially, how to become informed, critical consumers
in a world that was trying to sell them everything.
And the other half of that legacy. On the other
hand, she was a quiet pioneer who broke significant
racial barriers in the mass market romance genre.
By creating Marilyn Morgan, she ensured that
black readers could see themselves as the capable,
romantic leads in the everyday books they bought
off spinning wire racks at the corner store.
She made representation accessible. Exactly.
She was a woman who worked tirelessly behind
the scenes, both in fiction and nonfiction, to
shape the culture for the better. This raises
an important question. As you think about the
story we've shared today, take a moment to reflect
on your own youth. Think about the magazines
you read, the practical guides you relied on,
or the cheap paperbacks you bought with your
allowance. Who were the unseen editors and everyday
genre writers working behind the scenes of the
media you consumed as a teen? How many other
hidden pioneers quietly broke barriers to shape
your worldview without ever becoming household
names? That is a profound thought to leave on.
It really underscores why digging into these
sources and uncovering these stories is so incredibly
rewarding. It changes how you look at the media
you grew up with. It really does reframe things.
Thank you so much for joining us on this deep
dive. We hope you walk away today with a new
appreciation for the hidden figures who shape
our culture. Thanks for listening, everyone.
And we hope you'll join us next time as we unpack
another fascinating topic. Until then, keep exploring,
keep questioning, and keep reading. Take care,
everyone.