1887-1950
Janet MacRorie was an journalist, adwoman, and radio censor, often based in Newark.
Janet began her career as a journalist she was a reporter, feature writer, and women’s page editor for the Newark Star-Eagle, and previously New York City. She wrote the “advice to the lovelorn” column in the Star Eagle. She also worked in advanced publicity for stage shows coming to Newark.
Janet became an assistant ad manager for PSE&G for 10 years, where she wrote ads with a female audience in mind. She was editor of Advertising Women in 1924-1925, and continued to publish articles in various publications.
After her career at PSE&G, she was what the Sunday Call called “chief censor” or “Director of Continuity Acceptance” for NBC in New York. In this work she was a pioneer in setting up standards and polices for commercial radio programs.
When she was spotlighted by the Sunday Call in 1926, she said she wanted to write stories in her old age, “We should all leave some pet ambitions unfulfilled so we’ll have something to interest us in the greater leisure of the later years. I long to write short stories, but I’m saving all my ambitions and impressions until I am old.”
Of her job at PSE&G she said, “It is usual…to have a man in such a position as mine…In this case it was believed that a woman would be better able to feel the pulse of a woman reader.”
Janet was born in New York. While her obituary says she spent much of her childhood in Scotland, she is shown living in South Orange on the 1900-1920 censuses. She attended Columbia and the Wheatuck School of Dramatic Art. Later, she worked for CBC and the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
Bibliography
Wingert, Dorothea. “She Writes Ads Now Saving Her Stories Until Old Age” Newark Sunday Call Oct 24, 1926
“Her Newark Experiences Help in Ticklish Job of Radio Censor” Newark Sunday Call Sept 18 1938
“Deaths in Jersey” Courier-News Feb 6, 1950
Census records
“Janet M’Rorie, New York, Dies” Newark News Feb 6, 1950, pg 26:
