Marguerite Higgins
Marguerite Higgins Hall (September 3, 1920 – January 3, 1966) was an American reporter and war correspondent. Higgins covered World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, and in the process advanced the cause of equal access for female war correspondents.[1] She had a long career with the New York Herald Tribune (1942–1963) and as a syndicated columnist for Newsday (1963–1965). She was the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for Foreign Correspondence awarded in 1951 for her coverage of the Korean War. She subsequently won Long Island University's George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting for articles from behind enemy lines in Korea and other nations in 1952.
Marguerite Higgins
September 3, 1920
January 3, 1966 (aged 45)
- first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for Foreign Correspondence
- advanced the cause of equal access for female war correspondents
Personal life[edit]
While at Berkeley, she met her first husband, Stanley Moore, a teaching assistant in the philosophy department. They were reportedly attracted to each other, but no relationship formed while in Berkeley.[2] When Higgins moved to New York, she became reacquainted with Moore, who was then a philosophy professor at Harvard. They married in 1942. He was soon drafted into WWII, and their relationship fell apart, ending in a divorce finalized in 1947.[5]
In 1952, she married William Evens Hall, a U.S. Air Force major general, whom she met while bureau chief in Berlin. They were married in Reno and settled down in Marin County.[12] Their first daughter, born in 1953, died five days after a premature birth. In 1958, she gave birth to a son, named Lawrence Higgins Hall and in 1959, a daughter, Linda Marguerite Hall.[4] By 1963, Hall had retired from the Air Force and went to work for an electronics firm, with a weekly commute to New York, returning to their home in Washington, D.C., by Friday.
Fictional character based on Marguerite Higgins:
Honors[edit]
Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson honored war correspondents, including Higgins, at an event in Washington, on November 23, 1946.[17]
On September 2, 2010, South Korea posthumously awarded Order of Diplomatic Service Merit Heungin Medal (Korean: 수교훈장 흥인장), one of its highest honors, to Marguerite Higgins. In a ceremony in the capital, her daughter and grandson accepted the Heunginjang, a national medal. The award cites Higgins's bravery in publicizing South Korea's struggle for survival in the early 1950s.[18]
In 2016, South Korean Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs awarded Korean War's Heroine of May.[19]