Martha Ellis Gellhorn, known as Martha Gellhorn, was known for being an American-born novelist, writer, and journalist. She was famous mainly for her journalistic skills and her need to be a foreign reporter made her a worldwide name. She was also known as a 20th century war correspondent and she was the best at what she did. She had a keen interest in war stories and made sure to cover any and all war stories from around the world. Her stage as a war journalist lasted around 60 long years. Apart from being a world name for war journalism, she was also famous as the third wife of the world famous American novelist Ernest Hemingway. The marriage lasted about five years, but it certainly gave prominence to her life. She had to face a lot of criticism from people when they compared her writings with her husband’s writings. She believed to get her voice out to the world according to the vision she saw and not to copy her husband just because he was a famous novelist known for his beautiful writing.
Childhood and early life
• Martha was born on November 8, 1908 to George Gellhorn and Edna Fischel Gellhorn in St. Louis, Missouri. Her mother, Edna Fischel Gellhorn, was a suffragette and her father, George Gellhorn, was a gynecologist.
• I had two brothers who had great careers and excelled at everything they did.
• Martha had a rebellious nature and did what she felt was right and these traits flowed through her genes where her mother was also a social activist and believed in letting people enjoy their rights.
• Martha graduated from her high school John Burroughs School in 1926 and enrolled at Bryn Mawr College, but left in the middle of 1927 to pursue a promising career in Journalism.
• He made sure that his articles were published for the world to see and therefore they were published in The New York Republic and this continued until the year 1930.
• He captured the various messages the world was sending him and finally published his first publication called ‘What Mad Pursuit’ in the year 1934.
• Later he came to the United States to find a job with the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. She during the ‘Great Depression’ in America and thus she became the official reporter of the ‘Great Depression’, where the government stored the contents she captured and were the files of official correspondence.
career
• She continued to be a war journalist with a rebellious character. She was hired for ‘Collier’s Weekly’ where she reported on Adolf Hitler, who recently became famous for his exploits.
• Covered the details and situations of World War II from countries like Singapore, Burma, Finland, England and Hong Kong.
• Martha made sure to get to the depth of the war situation and made sure no one caught her red-handed while covering the war stories. On June 6, 1944, she was the first woman to arrive in Normandy and she also reported from the Dachau concentration camp after the camp became independent from Allied troops.
• Later he worked for the ‘Atlantic Monthly’ where he covered the Vietnam War and the problems between the Arabs and the citizens of Israel during the 60’s and 70’s.
• He soon realized that his body was giving up due to age, as he was almost 70 years old and therefore unable to run across locations and countries to cover stories of political conflict.
older jobs
• Aside from being a fierce journalist, Martha Gellhorn was a novelist and travel writer. He put into words his experiences and the real emotions of the lives of people afflicted with grief and published acclaimed books called ‘A Ravaged Field’ in the year 1940, ‘The Face of War’ in the year 1959, ‘The Darkest Trees’ Basses have Tops’ in 1967, ‘Travels with myself and with another’ in 1978 and finally ‘The view from the ground’ in 1988.
Awards and Achievements
• Being a world-famous war journalist in a time when women were not given much importance meant a change in the lives of several women. Martha Gellhorn became an inspiration to women, and years later, in 2007, the United States Postal Service announced a stamp honoring the greatest female journalists of the 20th century. An award was announced in her name in which journalists from around the world were commemorated with an award each year for writing outstanding journalistic content in English, whether for newspapers or the Internet.
Personal life and legacy
• Martha Gellhorn had several love affairs but found true love when she met Ernest Hemingway. She married him in the year 1940 but separated in the year 1945 with a divorce.
• She did not like being compared to her writing and wanted to be an independent novelist with a unique way of expressing her thoughts.
• She had a second marriage to the former editorial director of Time magazine named TS Matthews in the year 1954. She had planned an orderly life with him by moving to London, but later divorced after about 11 years.
• She had adopted a baby boy in 1949, but soon had a bitter relationship with him because she had other priorities.
• Towards the end of her life, Martha was nearly blind, suffering from ovarian cancer, and was reported to have committed suicide, ending her life by ingesting cyanide.
Trivia
• Martha Gellhorn was considered to be a sexually manipulative woman and did not engage in physical relationships with her partners with their personal consent. She was also described as “conscious”.