Elizabeth Peer

They married on December 16, 1929.

Newsweek, a prominent weekly news magazine, had no more than a couple women writers from its founding in 1933 and none when Peer arrived in 1958.

An editor told Peer that if she was interested in writing she should "go somewhere else."

Elizabeth Clow Peer Jansson (February 3, 1936 – May 26, 1984), often just Liz Peer, was a pioneering American journalist who worked for Newsweek from 1958 until her death in 1984.

She began her career at Newsweek as a copy girl, at a time when opportunities for women were limited.

Peer was born in East Orange, New Jersey, on February 3, 1936, to Dr. Lyndon A. Peer and Ruth Banghart Peer.

Both her parents were college graduates.

Lyndon, a graduate of Cornell University, was a plastic surgeon who established the department of plastic surgery at St. Barnabas Hospital in Newark, New Jersey.

Ruth graduated from Wells College.

Elizabeth attended the Connecticut College for Women, graduating in 1957.

Peer majored in philosophy and showed a strong interest in the arts.

She started out as a reporter for the student newspaper, the Connecticut College News (whose faculty advisor was a young Paul Fussell), before shifting to become its cartoonist as a sophomore.

In that year she also served as art editor for the Quarterly, the college's literary magazine, and began acting in plays.

She continued acting throughout her tenure at Connecticut.

Peer's performance as one of the two schoolteachers in Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour made an impression on William Meredith, then on the English faculty:

"Miss Peer's final scene showed great sensitivity, and throughout the play she used her fine voice with tact and intelligence."

At the end of her junior year Peer was elected president of the "Wig & Candle", the student theater group.

Peer recalled later that she "never meant to have a career", but after an inconclusive engagement with an unnamed man the spring of her senior year at Connecticut, she followed up on her experience at Connecticut by enrolling in the theater program at Columbia University.

Her parents disapproved of her decision and declined to pay for the degree, and Peer dropped out from Columbia.

An employment agency in New York City placed Peer with Newsweek as a copy girl.

At the time, Peer wrote later, she had no intention of staying more than a couple years before finding a suitable husband.

Nevertheless, Peer's adventurous nature–including a notable incident in 1960 where she hid under a table to eavesdrop on a meeting of the Civil Aeronautics Board–attracted the right kind of attention from Newsweek's editors.

The culture began to change in 1961 when Phil Graham, publisher of The Washington Post, purchased Newsweek.

Graham promoted Osborn "Oz" Elliott, the managing editor, to editor.

Elliott gave Peer a writing tryout; the only such tryout for a woman between 1961–1969.

Later, Peer reflected on the episode with bitterness:

"Few bureaucracies are perfect, and by a series of oversights on management's part, one woman was given a writing tryout between 1961 and 1969. I was the recipient of this largesse, becoming a writer in 1962..."

Osborn Elliott promoted her to writer in 1962; two years later she would be dispatched to Paris as Newsweek's first female foreign correspondent.

Newsweek dispatched Peer to Paris in 1964.

She was its first female foreign correspondent, though she did not receive the customary raise; when Peer inquired about the raise, Elliott allegedly replied "What do you mean? Think of the honor we are paying you!"

Peer held her own with the "macho crowd" of the foreign correspondents in Paris.

Lynn Povich, who arrived at the Paris bureau in 1965 as a secretary, recalled Peer as "Newsweek's Brenda Starr. She could match the toughest foreign correspondent with her cigarettes, her swagger, and her fluent French. She was also a gifted writer and versatile reporter who covered everything from politics and the arts to fashion and food."

Peer sought to cover the Vietnam War while in Paris but was rejected because she was a woman.

Peer returned to the United States in 1969 to work in Newsweek's Washington, D.C., bureau.

When forty-six of Newsweek female employees filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Peer remained on the sidelines.

In 1969 Peer returned to the United States to take up a post in Newsweek's Washington, D.C. bureau.

Still annoyed at Newsweek over the lack of a raise, Peer had them ship her extensive collection of French wine back to the States.

She was passed over for promotion to senior editor in 1973 for reasons that remain unclear.

Peer returned to Paris in 1975 as bureau chief, and became Newsweek's first female war correspondent in 1977 when she covered the Ogaden War.

Her reporting there won her recognition, but she suffered a debilitating injury from which she never recovered, leading to her suicide in 1984.