Sylvia Porter: America's Original Personal Finance Columnist

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Photographer Jack Sheaffer captured this portrait of Porter on January 6, 1962, while she was traveling in Tucson, Arizona. It soon became the headshot for her column. Courtesy of University of Arizona Libraries, Special Collections, MS435, 18723.2. “Anything I am is due to my mother. I am living her life!” Porter said of Rose Maisel Feldman, shown in an undated personal photo. Used with permission of the National Women and Media Collection, State Historical Society of Missouri. “Our marriage was way ahead of its time,” Porter said of her relationship with Sumner Collins, a Hearst newspaper executive. The couple wed in 1943 after meeting on a cruise ship and remained together for thirty-four years. Used with permission of the National Women and Media Collection, State Historical Society of Missouri. Porter opens one of 100,000 letters she received in 1971 after she wrote a column offering a free unit-price chart to help readers calculate how much they were paying for food and other goods. Used with permission of the National Women and Media Collection, State Historical Society of Missouri. This memorable photo captures Porter visiting President Lyndon Johnson in the Oval Office and offers a funny caption by an unknown friend speculating about their conversation: “Sylvia . . . here’s how Baker explained it . . . the lows come from here . . . the highs from here . . . that’s stereo . . . magnificent sound!” Johnson approached Porter in 1964 to be president of the Export-Import Bank, an offer she declined. Used with permission of the National Women and Media Collection, State Historical Society of Missouri. With President Gerald Ford to her right and consumer activist Ralph Nader to her left, Porter discusses anti-inflation efforts at the White House in 1974 as part of the Citizens’ Action Committee to Fight Inflation. The failed campaign, which Porter chaired, distributed the infamous “WIN” button she is wearing. Used with permission of the National Women and Media Collection, State Historical Society of Missouri. Porter found another business partner in James Fox, her third husband, a public relations executive to whom she was married from 1979 until her death in 1991. Used with permission of the National Women and Media Collection, State Historical Society of Missouri. ...