Valesh, Eva McDonald, 1866-1956

Journalist, labor leader, civic worker.

From the description of Reminiscences of Eva MacDonald Valesh : oral history, 1952. (Columbia University In the City of New York). WorldCat record id: 309740894

Labor activist and journalist Eva McDonald was born September 9, 1866 in Orono, Maine, the daughter of John L. (1836-1911) and Ellen J. (Lane, b.1841) McDonald. The oldest of nine children, she graduated from high school in Minneapolis in 1881. After graduating from a teacher training school (ca. 1887) and not receiving a teaching offer, she began working for the St. Paul Globe and wrote a series exposing the working conditions of women in the Twin Cities under the pen name Eva Gay. This series ran from 1888 to 1889. She also reported on the streetcar strike of 1888.

Valesh soon became involved in the growing labor movement and was a speaker for the Knights of Labor and, later, the National Farmers' Alliance (1890-1891). She continued to write a labor column for the Minneapolis Tribune (ca. 1892-1895) and was also a campaign speaker for William J. Bryan in the Twin Cities during the 1896 presidential election campaign. In 1896 she moved to New York where she was a reporter for the New York Journal from about 1896 to 1899, following which she became a free lance journalist. From 1900 to 1910 she edited the American Federalist in Washington, D.C. and published and edited (1911-1918) American Clubwoman (New York) with her second husband. From 1925 to 1952 she was a proofreader for the New York Times .

Eva married Frank Valesh in 1891, divorced him in 1907, and later married Benjamin F. Cross (ca. 1910-1923). She had a son, Frank Morgan Valesh, about 1892. Eva Valesh died in 1956 in Westport, Connecticut.

For more information see Rhoda Gilman, "Eva McDonald Valesh," in Women of Minnesota: Selected Biographical Essays (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1977), pp. 55-76.

From the guide to the Eva McDonald Valesh papers., 1891-1983., (Minnesota Historical Society)