Born Elsie Dickheiser. Daughter of Abraham Dickheiser and Hattie Jacobs. Sister of Ruth (Schwartz), Franklin, and Sidney.
Elsie Dick, unique in her position as a woman in charge of a network's documentaries, was killed along with twelve other journalists from the U.S. in a 1949 plane crash in India. She was director of educational programs, women's news, and religious features for the Mutual Broadcast System. Elsie became the first American female journalist to die on assignment. Her name was later added to the Journalists Memorial.
She had begun her career at the New Yorker, where she wrote articles and edited the art department before joining the Hearst magazine group and becoming an associate editor of House Beautiful. She entered radio in 1943. Her final documentary was "The Atom and You", a four-broadcast series on atomic energy and its relationship to human beings.
On July 12, 1949, a KLM Lockheed 749 Constellation was attempting an approach into Bombay in monsoon weather and flew below the minimum safe altitude into nearby hills killing all 45 passengers aboard. It was India's worst air disaster at the time.
The aircraft passengers included thirteen prominent journalists from the US, Elsie among them, who had been invited by the Dutch government to conduct independent investigations in the Dutch East Indies of rising tensions between the Dutch and the new independence movement in what is now Indonesia. Two of them were Pulitzer Prize winners. For many years afterwards, there were conspiracy theories that the plane had been deliberately tampered with to halt the investigation.
She was the aunt by marriage of iconic fashion illustrator Kenneth Paul Block, who even as a young boy found inspiration in her sense of style.
Elsie Dick, unique in her position as a woman in charge of a network's documentaries, was killed along with twelve other journalists from the U.S. in a 1949 plane crash in India. She was director of educational programs, women's news, and religious features for the Mutual Broadcast System. Elsie became the first American female journalist to die on assignment. Her name was later added to the Journalists Memorial.
She had begun her career at the New Yorker, where she wrote articles and edited the art department before joining the Hearst magazine group and becoming an associate editor of House Beautiful. She entered radio in 1943. Her final documentary was "The Atom and You", a four-broadcast series on atomic energy and its relationship to human beings.
On July 12, 1949, a KLM Lockheed 749 Constellation was attempting an approach into Bombay in monsoon weather and flew below the minimum safe altitude into nearby hills killing all 45 passengers aboard. It was India's worst air disaster at the time.
The aircraft passengers included thirteen prominent journalists from the US, Elsie among them, who had been invited by the Dutch government to conduct independent investigations in the Dutch East Indies of rising tensions between the Dutch and the new independence movement in what is now Indonesia. Two of them were Pulitzer Prize winners. For many years afterwards, there were conspiracy theories that the plane had been deliberately tampered with to halt the investigation.
She was the aunt by marriage of iconic fashion illustrator Kenneth Paul Block, who even as a young boy found inspiration in her sense of style.
Born Elsie Dickheiser. Daughter of Abraham Dickheiser and Hattie Jacobs. Sister of Ruth (Schwartz), Franklin, and Sidney.
Elsie Dick, unique in her position as a woman in charge of a network's documentaries, was killed along with twelve other journalists from the U.S. in a 1949 plane crash in India. She was director of educational programs, women's news, and religious features for the Mutual Broadcast System. Elsie became the first American female journalist to die on assignment. Her name was later added to the Journalists Memorial.
She had begun her career at the New Yorker, where she wrote articles and edited the art department before joining the Hearst magazine group and becoming an associate editor of House Beautiful. She entered radio in 1943. Her final documentary was "The Atom and You", a four-broadcast series on atomic energy and its relationship to human beings.
On July 12, 1949, a KLM Lockheed 749 Constellation was attempting an approach into Bombay in monsoon weather and flew below the minimum safe altitude into nearby hills killing all 45 passengers aboard. It was India's worst air disaster at the time.
The aircraft passengers included thirteen prominent journalists from the US, Elsie among them, who had been invited by the Dutch government to conduct independent investigations in the Dutch East Indies of rising tensions between the Dutch and the new independence movement in what is now Indonesia. Two of them were Pulitzer Prize winners. For many years afterwards, there were conspiracy theories that the plane had been deliberately tampered with to halt the investigation.
She was the aunt by marriage of iconic fashion illustrator Kenneth Paul Block, who even as a young boy found inspiration in her sense of style.
Elsie Dick, unique in her position as a woman in charge of a network's documentaries, was killed along with twelve other journalists from the U.S. in a 1949 plane crash in India. She was director of educational programs, women's news, and religious features for the Mutual Broadcast System. Elsie became the first American female journalist to die on assignment. Her name was later added to the Journalists Memorial.
She had begun her career at the New Yorker, where she wrote articles and edited the art department before joining the Hearst magazine group and becoming an associate editor of House Beautiful. She entered radio in 1943. Her final documentary was "The Atom and You", a four-broadcast series on atomic energy and its relationship to human beings.
On July 12, 1949, a KLM Lockheed 749 Constellation was attempting an approach into Bombay in monsoon weather and flew below the minimum safe altitude into nearby hills killing all 45 passengers aboard. It was India's worst air disaster at the time.
The aircraft passengers included thirteen prominent journalists from the US, Elsie among them, who had been invited by the Dutch government to conduct independent investigations in the Dutch East Indies of rising tensions between the Dutch and the new independence movement in what is now Indonesia. Two of them were Pulitzer Prize winners. For many years afterwards, there were conspiracy theories that the plane had been deliberately tampered with to halt the investigation.
She was the aunt by marriage of iconic fashion illustrator Kenneth Paul Block, who even as a young boy found inspiration in her sense of style.
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