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Agness Underwood

American journalist and newspaper editor (1902-1984)

  • 13 min read
  • 7 chapters

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Life and career

Agnes May Wilson was born in San Francisco, California, to Clifford Wilson, a journeyman glass-blower, and Mamie Sullivan Wilson, a housewife. Underwood would adopt the distinctive double "s" at the end of her first name in 1920. Underwood was the elder of two daughters. The Wilson family's frequent moves were determined by where Clifford could find work. In November 1907, Mamie died in childbirth. Clifford's work required him to travel, which made it impossible for him to care for the girls on his own. Underwood and her younger sister were handed over to relatives in Terre Haute, Indiana, to be raised. Underwood recalled that she and her sister did not stay in Terre Haute and that they moved frequently, often winding up in the hands of public charity.

Clifford became distressed with the way his daughters were being treated and found two foster homes in Portland, Indiana, each willing to take one of the girls. Underwood's sister was sent to live with a farm family. Underwood's new home was with Charles and Belle Ewry and their three sons. She and the eldest of the three sons, Ralph, liked each other immediately. Ralph Ewry became her friend and protector. Underwood later described the Ewry household as a serious environment, made bearable only by Ralph's kindness.

Underwood did well in school and skipped three grades; however, by the time she entered high school in 1916 her enthusiasm for her studies had waned and she dropped out in the tenth grade. Underwood took as job as a clerk in the basement of Cartwright's department store in Portland, Indiana. She became increasingly unhappy living with the Ewrys, particularly following Ralph's deployment overseas as a soldier during World War I. Ralph sensed Underwood's discontent in her letters to him and, believing that she might be better off with a blood relative, managed to locate one of her distant relatives in San Francisco.

Underwood arrived in San Francisco in November 1918, and moved in with her relative who lived in an apartment on Geary Street. Underwood knew she would be expected to contribute to household expenses and set out to find a job. After a few frustrating days of unsuccessful job hunting, she arrived at the apartment only to discover that her relative had moved out leaving Underwood broke, alone, and homeless.

Another of Underwood's female relatives invited her to move to Hollywood, California, and live with her. Soon after her arrival it became clear that Underwood's relative was interested only in transforming the girl into a child star. When that plan failed, the relative put Underwood out on the street.

Underwood became a resident at the Salvation Army's home for working women in downtown Los Angeles and got a job at the Broadway Department Store. It was there that she met Evelyn Conners, a woman a few months her junior, who would become her lifelong friend.

Following a brief move to Salt Lake City, Utah, Underwood returned to Los Angeles, where she found work as a waitress at the Pig 'n Whistle restaurant in downtown Los Angeles. One day in April 1920, she was lamenting to Harry Underwood, a co-worker, that her Hollywood relative had resurfaced and demanded that Underwood live with her again and relinquish her paychecks to her, or she would turn the underage girl over to the authorities. Harry told her that the relative could not do that if he and Underwood were married. The couple married three weeks later on April 28, 1920.

By 1926, Underwood and her husband had become parents to a daughter and son. Underwood's husband and sister worked outside the home, but the family still struggled to make ends meet. One of the small economies that Underwood practiced was to wear her sister's hand-me-down silk stockings. One day Underwood asked her husband for the money to buy a new pair of stockings, but he demurred. An argument ensued and Underwood told her husband that if he would not give her money for stockings, she would get a job and earn them herself.

In her autobiography, Newspaperwoman (Harper Brothers, 1949), Underwood said that she did not want to work outside the home, and that she had no idea where to look for a job. As it turned out, a job found her. The day following the stockings argument Underwood's friend, Evelyn Connors, called and asked her if she would be interested in a temporary job on the switchboard at the Record. Underwood seized the opportunity, and thus began her career in the newspaper business.

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