Author: Charlotte Nichols Montgomery
Date of birth: 31 March 1904
Date of death: 10 November 1994
Website:
Charlotte Nichols Montgomery was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of an attorney. She was raised in Westfield, New Jersey. In 1923 she graduated from the Hartridge School in Plainfield, New Jersey. In 1927 she graduated from Vassar College with an A.B. in Economics. After graduating, she moved to New York City and became an advertising copywriter for the firm Lyddon, Hanford and Kimball. In 1928 she married Harry M. Montgomery, an advertising executive. In 1931, having been laid off from her position, she began working as a freelance advertising copywriter. From 1933-1935, she wrote the society column for the Westfield Leader, then left that position to become a freelance writer. She wrote essays, mostly about the domestic family life, some of which were published in Parents magazine and other periodicals. She also wrote two romance novels, Summer Job (1942) and Keep Love Flying (1942).
In 1943, her husband enlisted in the Army and was positioned overseas, and Charlotte Montgomery took over his position as advertising executive at Ferry Hanly, a New York City advertising firm on Fifth Avenue. She began writing a column called "From the Woman's Viewpoint" for the advertising trade journal, Tide. Following the war, she returned to working as a freelance journalist and editor. By 1951 she was simultaneously writing columns for Redbook and Good Housekeeping and was a regular contributor to Fine Cars, the National Observer, Today's Woman, and other periodicals. She was the first woman to write a column about cars, and her Good Housekeeping column "Woman and Her Car"(1950-1956) became her third book, Handbook for Women Drivers (1960). In 1955, she began writing the column "Strictly as a Customer" for Good Housekeeping, which was later renamed "Speaker for the House", and ran until her retirement in 1982. In it, she addressed consumers topics such as car safety, services for handicapped people, fraudulent packaging, insurance, mail scams, and the Equal Rights amendment. She won several awards during her fifty-five year career as a journalist and pioneering consumer advocate.
