A picture may say 1,000 words, though there is possibly another story lurking just outside the frame. This is certainly the case with the images featured in "The First with the Latest! Aggie Underwood, the Los Angeles Herald, and the Sordid Crimes of a City," a new exhibition at the Los Angeles Public Library's (LAPL) Central Library.
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The First With the Latest
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At first glance, these selections from the LAPL Photo Collection might appear to be a random assortment of images relating to crimes from Los Angeles' past. From the oft discussed and still unsolved deaths of Thelma Todd and Elizabeth Short to the lesser known cases of accused murderess Nellie Short, and newlywed bandits Thomas and Burmah White, the photographs all have two things in common; the Los Angeles Herald and Aggie Underwood.
Agness "Aggie" Underwood, got into the newspaper business by accident when she took a temporary job with the Los Angeles Record in 1926 as a switchboard operator in order to buy herself a new pair of stockings. The energy of the newsroom thrilled Aggie and she became bound and determined to become a reporter. Under the tutelage of Gertrude Price, writer of the women's column for the Record, Aggie proved to be a quick study with an amazing intuition. Within a few short years, she began making a name for herself as an ace crime reporter.
In 1935, Aggie accepted a position with the Los Angeles Evening Herald and Express, one of two local papers owned by William Randolph Hearst (the other being the Los Angeles Examiner). She quickly formed a tight bond with photographer Perry Fowler and together the pair spent the next decade documenting many of the city's more sordid crimes while helping their newspaper live up to its motto "the first with the latest."
In 1947, while covering the notorious Black Dahlia case, Aggie was promoted to editor of the city desk, making her the first woman of a major metropolitan newspaper to hold that position. For the next twenty-one years, Aggie cemented her reputation as a firm but fair editor who kept a baseball bat at her desk for dealing with overzealous publicists and a starter pistol in a drawer for when the newsroom got too quiet. Agness Underwood remained the city editor following the merger of the Herald and Examiner in 1962, and retired 1968. She passed away in 1984 when she was 81 years old.
The Los Angeles Herald Examiner folded in 1989 and the Los Angeles Public Library subsequently acquired its photographic archive. Within those files, brought to life in light and shadow, are images of the cases Aggie Underwood covered as a reporter with the paper in the 1930s and 40s, and recounted in her 1949 autobiography Newspaperwoman! With this exhibition, the selected photos not only tell a story of Los Angeles crime, but of the woman standing nearby (and sometimes in the frame) with her trusty pen and notepad poised and ready to be "the first with the latest."
"The First with the Latest! Aggie Underwood, the Los Angeles Herald, and the Sordid Crimes of a City" was curated by Joan Renner (Author/Editrix/Publisher of Deranged L.A. Crimes, Board Member of Photo Friends) and is on display at the Los Angeles Public Library's Central Library through January 10, 2016.
A companion catalog is available through Amazon.