Mildred Seydell

Mildred Seydell (born Mildred Rutherford Woolley; March 21, 1889 – February 20, 1988) was an American pioneering journalist in Georgia. Seydel wrote as a syndicated columnist and founded the Seydell Journal, a quarterly journal that was the successor to The Think Tank. The Think Tank was a short-lived biweekly journal of poetry, articles and reviews (1940–1947). She founded the Mildred Seydell Publishing Company, and regularly gave speeches.

Early life Seydell's parents were Vasser Woolley, an attorney and businessman from Atlanta, and Bessie Cobb Rutherford, the daughter of Colonel John Cobb Rutherford, who was also an attorney. Named after her grandfather's sister Mildred Lewis Rutherford, Seydell was the elder of two children. Seydell attended the Lucy Cobb Institute in Athens, Georgia, an institute that her great-aunt and namesake was involved in before her death, but Seydell soon left in order to attend the Sorbonne.

Career In 1922, she began her career as a journalist with the Charleston Gazette, a West Virginia newspaper. In 1924 she moved to Atlanta as a correspondent for that paper. She was affiliated with the Atlanta Georgian, one of William Randolph Hearst's string of newspapers,

Seydell was twice married. Her first marriage which lasted from 1910 to 1944 was to Paul Bernard Seydel, a Belgian chemist/scientist whom she met while studying at the Sorbonne. It was her first major story. She interviewed Harold E. "Red" Grange, and was pictured doing his hand reading, a technique she used to "break the ice" with an interview subject. During the Scopes trial, Seydell was sent a picture of a monkey's hand, and she was photographed comparing the hands of the Bible toting judge John T. Raulston, Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan to it.

During her career, she interviewed Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini in 1926, Other notable personages interviewed by her included (in alphabetical order): the wife of Edvard Beneš, George Cukor, Ève Curie, Marion Davies, and Bette Davis. Other columns included What Would You Do? (advice column from 1926 to 1931) renamed as Mildred Seydell Says... in 1933,

Seydell became intertwined with the National Woman's Party and the struggle for equal rights following the passage of the 19th Amendment. In 1931 and 1932, she was Chairperson of Atlanta and Georgia, respectively. In 1935 she became associate editor of Equal Rights, its national publication.

Other women's organizations in which she was active included: the League of Women Voters, the League of American Pen Women (on March 13, 1931, after meeting with its national president, she was one of 15 Charter members of the Atlanta Branch ), the National Federation of Press Women, the Pan American League, the Atlanta Women's Chamber of Commerce; and the Atlanta Woman's Club. From 1941-43, Seydell served as President of the Atlanta Federation of Women's Clubs. Seydell was active in the Federation of American Women's Club Overseas (in Belgium) and the American Woman's Club of Brussels. "the only school in the United States which is owned and operated by a state federation of women's clubs." It was founded in 1909 by the Georgia Federation of Women's Clubs. As Seydell wrote in the Atlanta Georgian, "The school is called the 'Light in the Mountains' because ignorance is darkness and knowledge is light." It was a gift of the charitable foundation, organized in 1982, which bears their names.

In a Georgia State Capitol ceremony on Martin Luther King Day in 2012, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal quoted Chins Up! by Mildred Seydell: "Great men don't hate. They are too busy with their accomplishments. Hate flourishes in the breasts of those who have time to feel their wrongs. Hate is the weapon of the defeated, love that of the victor. No man ever won by hating, but many have conquered by loving."

Published works