When a literary legend died in British Columbia at 101 years of age in February, the University of Victoria was bestowed an enormous honour – it was gifted the personal and literary archives of the renowned journalist, author, activist and “truth-teller.”
“Edith Iglauer’s contributions to literature are significant, as are her archives that document her journalism and non-fiction works over eight decades,” said UVic director of special collections and university archivist Lara Wilson. “UVic is honoured to be the home to this material.”
Born in 1917 in Cleveland, Ohio, Iglauer died Feb. 13 in Garden Bay on the west coast of British Columbia just weeks shy of her 102nd birthday.
At a time when glass ceilings were rampant, Iglauer made a name for herself reporting from places where the only thing above her head was a blanket of stars – on seasonal ice roads in the Northwest Territories, dogsleds in northern Quebec or a salmon troller in the sea off British Columbia’s wild West Coast.
“This is Edith admiring people who defy gravity,” said Iglauer’s son Jay Hamburger, artistic director for Theatre In the Raw in Vancouver. “Edith’s choices of who she wrote about were people who were somewhat fearless.”
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With a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University in 1939, the incredibly inquisitive Iglauer began her career as one of a handful of female Second World War correspondents, working from the radio newsroom of the Office of War Information in Washington, D.C.
