Eliza Jane Nicholson bears the distinction of being the first woman in the United States to own a major newspaper. Born in 1843 near Pearlington, Mississippi, she enjoyed writing from a young age, and, against her family’s wishes, she eventually moved to New Orleans to pursue her dream of being a professional journalist. She became the literary editor of the Daily Picayune in 1870, where she wrote under the pseudonym Pearl Rivers.

Two years later, she married the owner of the newspaper, Alva Holbrook, and when he died, in 1876, she inherited it. The paper was in financial trouble, but under Nicholson’s management, it became profitable once again. She was an outspoken proponent of women in the workforce and equal pay. She hired and mentored other female journalists, most notably Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer, the nationally syndicated advice columnist who went by the nom de plume Dorothy Dix.

Nicholson was involved in creating the Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1884 and was a founding member of the Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, which was launched in 1892 and continues to operate today as the Children’s Bureau of New Orleans.