Marguerite Higgins – More than just “His Wife”

The inscription “His Wife” on the headstone of Marguerite Higgins at Arlington National Cemetery doesn’t begin to do her justice. Her husband William Hall was an Air Force general who is buried with her. And the regulations are such that inscription describes her relationship to him rather than her own incredible story.

 

Marguerite Higgins represents the best of American journalism. She’s born in Hong Kong, studies French at Berkeley and receives a master’s in journalism from Columbia. She is witness to some of the great events of the last century. 

 

She works for the New York Herald Tribune, and she asks her editors to send her to Europe to cover World War II. This is met with resistance. It was not easy for women to break into journalism, a profession heretofore reserved for men. But she perseveres and gets the assignment.

 

In Europe she witnesses the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp. She covers the Nuremberg trials and the Soviet blockade of Berlin.

 

She becomes chief of the Tribune’s Tokyo bureau and is one of the first reporters in Korea when war breaks out there. Initially the army bans women reporters, but she appeals to General Douglas MacArthur who sends a telegram saying: “Ban on women correspondents in Korea has been lifted. Marguerite Higgins is held in highest professional esteem by everyone.”

 

For her Korean reporting she becomes the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for foreign correspondence. She continues covering foreign affairs and interviews Franco, Khrushchev, Nehru among others.

 

She joins Newsday and goes to cover Vietnam. But while there she contracts a deadly tropical disease. She is hospitalized and she knows she is dying but she continues to write columns up until the end. She dies at age 45.

Duration
2 hours
Group Size
2 to 8

Above It All - Washington National Cathedral

Washington National Cathedral is a Gothic masterpiece. Perched on a hill overlooking the city it is the second largest cathedral in the country and the 6th largest in the world. It is a living work of art filled with stained-glass, hand-carved wood, and wrought iron. While a modern structure (finished in 1990) it is constructed in the old-world way and has no structural steel.

★★★★★
★★★★★
from
$55
Duration
2 hours 30 minutes
Group Size
1 to 8

Hidden on Capitol Hill

Few people think beyond the Capitol when they think of the Hill. This tour takes you to the heart of a neighborhood with a fascinating history that still speaks to us today. Learn about these famous locations from a former Capitol Hill resident.

★★★★★
★★★★★
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$250
Duration
2 hours 30 minutes
Group Size
1 to 8

Embassy Row: Divinity & Diplomats

Most Embassy Row tours don’t venture far beyond Dupont Circle. But ours does. We see it all from top to bottom. This stretch of Massachusetts Avenue used to be called Millionaires Row where Gilded Age robber-barons built grand mansions. Today those mansions house most of Washington’s embassies, along with private clubs and statues of world heroes such as Mandela, Gandhi, and Churchill – and we will be right in the heart of it.

★★★★★
★★★★★
from
$250