Virginia Cowles

(Harriet) Virginia Spencer Cowles (August 24, 1910 – September 17, 1983) was an American journalist, biographer, and travel writer. During her long career, Cowles went from covering fashion, to covering the Spanish Civil War, the turbulent period in Europe leading up to World War II, and the entire war. Her service as a correspondent was recognized by the British government with an OBE in 1947. After the war, she published a number of critically acclaimed biographies of historical figures. In 1983, while traveling with her husband, she was killed in an automobile accident which left him severely injured. Early life Cowles was born in 1910 in Brattleboro, Vermont to Dr. Edward Spencer Cowles and his wife Florence Wolcott Cowles, née Jacquith. In the 1930s, she started to work as a journalist in the United States. After first working on the gossip columns of Boston and New York newspapers - for which she wrote mainly about fashion, love and society - she moved to foreign reporting. Spanish Civil War Cowles went to Spain in 1936, with the intention; becoming a war correspondent, despite her relative youth and lack of experience. Her coverage from Spain was notably different from that of many of her contemporaries like Martha Gellhorn (a staunch supporter of the Republican cause)) in that she was determined to cover the war from both sides. Some of her most notable reporting came from Republican sources, such as her interview with Pepe Quintanilla the chief executioner of Madrid. She reported on the Spanish Civil War for the Daily Telegraph, the Sunday Times, and the Hearst newspapers.