Mildred Ladner Thompson
Mildred Ladner Thompson (June 24, 1918 – June 25, 2013) was an American journalist, writer and columnist. Her career included tenures at The Wall Street Journal, where she became one of its first female reporters, as well as the Associated Press and Tulsa World. Early life and education Thompson was born Mildred Diefenderfer in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in 1918, the only child of Orlando and Mary Diefenderfer. She worked at an Allentown newspaper while completing her bachelor's degree at Moravian College. Thompson next received a master's degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Career She was hired by the Associated Press in 1945, shortly after finishing graduate school. Thompson worked out of the Associated Press' bureau in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She interviewed U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife, First Lady of the United States Eleanor Roosevelt, while with the AP. Her work for the AP caught the attention of The Wall Street Journal, which hired her in 1945 as a reporter for its bureau in Washington D.C., becoming one of the newspaper's first female reporters. She was the only woman on the staff of the WSJ at the time of her hiring. Her assignments included the aviation, the Truman