Gail Collins (born November 25, 1945)

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Gail Collins (born November 25, 1945) is an American journalist, op-ed columnist and author, most recognized for her work with the New York Times. Joining the Times in 1995 as a member of the editorial board, from 2001 to 2007 she served as the paper's Editorial Page Editor – the first woman to attain that position. Collins writes a semi-weekly op-ed column for the Times, published Thursdays and Saturdays. She also co-authors a blog with David Brooks, "The Conversation," at NYTimes.com, featuring political commentary.

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1945 as Gail Gleason, Collins has a B.A. in journalism from Marquette University and an M.A. in government from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She wrote for Connecticut publications like the Hartford Advocate and, in 1972, founded the Connecticut State News Bureau, a news service providing coverage of the state capital and Connecticut politics; when she sold it in 1977, it had grown into the largest service of its kind in the United States. Collins later wrote as a columnist for the New York Daily News, Newsday, and the Connecticut Business Journal, as a financial reporter for United Press International, and as a public affairs host for Connecticut Public Television.

Collins joined The New York Times in 1995 as a member of the editorial board, and later as an op-ed columnist. In 2001, she was named the paper's first female Editorial Page Editor, a position she held for six years. She resigned from this post at the beginning of 2007 to take a six-month leave to focus on writing her book When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present, returning to the Times as a regular columnist in July 2007.

Beyond her work as a journalist, Collins has published several books: The Millennium Book, which she co-authored with her husband, Dan Collins; Scorpion Tongues: Gossip, Celebrity and American Politics; America's Women: Four Hundred Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines; the aforementioned When Everything Changed; and As Texas Goes: How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda'. She also wrote the introduction for the 50th anniversary edition of The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan; the 50th anniversary edition was published in 2013.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gail_Collins

Further Readings:

When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present by Gail Collins
Paperback: 512 pages
Publisher: Back Bay Books; Reprint edition (October 21, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0316014044
ISBN-13: 978-0316014045
Amazon: When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present
Amazon Kindle: When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present

Gail Collins, New York Times columnist and bestselling author, recounts the astounding revolution in women's lives over the past 50 years, with her usual "sly wit and unfussy style" (People).

When Everything Changed begins in 1960, when most American women had to get their husbands' permission to apply for a credit card. It ends in 2008 with Hillary Clinton's historic presidential campaign. This was a time of cataclysmic change, when, after four hundred years, expectations about the lives of American women were smashed in just a generation.

A comprehensive mix of oral history and Gail Collins's keen research--covering politics, fashion, popular culture, economics, sex, families, and work--When Everything Changed is the definitive book on five crucial decades of progress. The enormous strides made since 1960 include the advent of the birth control pill, the end of "Help Wanted--Male" and "Help Wanted--Female" ads, and the lifting of quotas for women in admission to medical and law schools. Gail Collins describes what has happened in every realm of women's lives, partly through the testimonies of both those who made history and those who simply made their way.

Picking up where her highly lauded book America's Women left off, When Everything Changed is a dynamic story, told with the down-to-earth, amusing, and agenda-free tone for which this beloved New York Times columnist is known. Older readers, men and women alike, will be startled as they are reminded of what their lives once were--"Father Knows Best" and "My Little Margie" on TV; daily weigh-ins for stewardesses; few female professors; no women in the Boston marathon, in combat zones, or in the police department. Younger readers will see their history in a rich new way. It has been an era packed with drama and dreams--some dashed and others realized beyond anyone's imagining.