The reveal came on July 20, 1942, when the New York Post’s popular financial column ran under the name of Sylvia Porter. Since starting at the Post seven years earlier, the columnist had hidden behind the gender-ambiguous byline S.F. Porter. At a time when women were banned from the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange, and kept out of corporate stockholders’ meetings, who would seek out financial advice from someone named Sylvia?
Meet Sylvia Porter, Creator of the Personal Finance Column